ailed over the consummate experience and masculine
vigour of the earl, the king's government lost both popularity and
respect, except only in the metropolis; and if, at the close of his
reign, it regained all its earlier favour with the people, it must be
principally ascribed to the genius of Hastings, then England's most
powerful subject, and whose intellect calmly moved all the springs of
action. But now everywhere the royal authority was weakened; and while
Edward was feasting at Shene and Warwick absent at Calais, the provinces
were exposed to all the abuses which most gall a population. The poor
complained that undue exactions were made on them by the hospitals,
abbeys, and barons; the Church complained that the queen's relations had
seized and spent Church moneys; the men of birth and merit complained
of the advancement of new men who had done no service: and all these
several discontents fastened themselves upon the odious Woodvilles, as
the cause of all. The second breach, now notorious, between the king and
the all-beloved Warwick, was a new aggravation of the popular hatred to
the queen's family, and seemed to give occasion for the malcontents to
appear with impunity, at least so far as the earl was concerned: it
was, then, at this critical time that the circumstances we are about to
relate occurred.

CHAPTER II. THE WOULD-BE IMPROVERS OF JOVE'S FOOTBALL, EARTH.--THE SAD
FATHER AND THE SAD CHILD.--THE FAIR RIVALS.

Adam Warner was at work on his crucible when the servitor commissioned
to attend him opened the chamber door, and a man dressed in the black
gown of a student entered.

He approached the alchemist, and after surveying him for a moment in a
silence that seemed not without contempt, said, "What, Master Warner,
are you so wedded to your new studies that you have not a word to bestow
on an old friend?"

Adam turned, and after peevishly gazing at the intruder a few moments,
his face brightened up into recognition.

"En iterum!" he said. "Again, bold Robin Hilyard, and in a scholar's
garb! Ha! doubtless thou hast learned ere this that peaceful studies do
best insure man's weal below, and art come to labour with me in the high
craft of mind-work!"

"Adam," quoth Hilyard, "ere I answer, tell me this: Thou with thy
science wouldst change the world: art thou a jot nearer to thy end?"

"Well-a-day," said poor Adam, "you know little what I have undergone.
For danger to myself by rack and gibbet I