FLOREAT ETON A.

BY AN OLD ETONIAN.

FRAGMENT I.

[Continued from page 418, Vol. IX.]

The castle of Donkeythorn, with its few adjoining acres, was the only remnant of what had once been a fine property, extending over a space of many leagues, belonging to the Donkeythorn family. Each Duke, as he succeeded to his patrimony, managed to CURtail instead of ENtail it a little; each had some hobby or mania, which tended in no small degree to diminish the rent-roll. The first had a mechanical turn, and tried various means to discover the art of making man a flying animal; and even went so far as to establish "The Grand Aërostatic Society-Capital, Twenty Thousand Pounds." Numbers of gentlemen (but unfortunately coming under the genus of men of straw) were too happy to become members, and perfectly coincided with the Duke's views, as they very well knew their lordly president would have to stand the brunt did a failure occur. After having managed to break one man's arm and another's leg, they contrived to break themselves; and when the books were examined, heavy sums were on the Dr. side, while on the credit page NOTHING seemed to be the prevailing word. The Duke being the only responsible party, he had to pay all the expenses, and part of the unentailed property must be sold; and so on, Duke succeeding Duke spend the hordes of their ancestors. The one preceding the present owner had most wantonly encumbered the estate, by giving fétes, balls, and parties, both in town and country, while the present Duke was bent upon electioneering; and the Marquis! his son's chief delight was in thorough. breds, a good Melton stud, and shooting, in the propagation of which he spared neither care nor expense.

Besides the Marquis, there were five daughters who had run successively the gauntlet of more than one London season, all unhappily without success; for they all remained in that blessed state called virginity. The three eldest had begun to forswear the pomps and vanities of a London life. They patronised the Reverend Gowl Thunderer, distributed his tracts, founded a school on the Chesterfieldian plan, which caused little clod-crushers to become disciples of that famous mannerist; besides which they were taught that England was an island, and America a quarter of the globe, while the weightier matters of digging and writing were neglected. The young ladies also wrote articles for the "Evangelical Reformer's Magazine," edited by Mr. Gowl Thunderer; together with pamphlets purporting to be the thoughts of the little busy bee-curious thoughts verytogether with making card-racks, pincushions, and a hundred other

things, all having in reality this one object in view, namely, the keeping of Mr. Thunderer in comfort and idleness.

It was a night or two subsequently to the election that the Duke of Donkeythorne and his son were seated over their port and olives, the ladies having retired to the drawing-room.

"My pamphlet did not take well," began the Marquis of Brandybottle, "although I gave Shatzscatsky twenty guineas to make it one of his finest productions; and as he wrote that speech of Lord Chatles W. -'s, which went down so well in the House of Lords last year, I surely thought he could produce a composition that would suit the limited capacities of the honest people of Hookey Snivem. I told him to be so particular about it that, although it was only for a set of boors to read, he must write it so that even the cleverest critic extant could not gainsay it; and I called his attention to that main point in all popular and political writings of the present day, namely, consistencies; for it is a rule laid down by our great men, that the substance which you assert in one page must be totally contradicted in the next. But, alas! the stupid fellow did not obey my injunctions; and I am half inclined to think we lost the election through that cursed pamphlet. But, n'importe, I am more fitted for a jockey than an M.P., and could study the Racing Calendar' better than a debate. The upshot of this is, that you must get me some fat sinecure; for, to be candid with you, my present allowance does not near meet my expenses, and my book this year on the Derby is rather heavy; and, if Rattletrap wins, I shall, to use a homely phrase, have kicked over the traces."

"Humph, humph!" said the Duke, having attended but little to the conversation; "too flowery that pamphlet. Humph! a very burlesque on plain speaking. Humph! likely to lose on Rattle-trap, eh! Those that bet in the long run generally lose. Humph! corked bottled of port. Humph! received plenty of advice from me about racing. Advised you, humph! to give up the turf, eschew your sporting friends, and give your heart and mind to your country. Humph! ring the bell, and we will have another bottle of port."

The

"My dear Frederick," began the Duke as soon as the butler had left the room, "while you were making comments on your pamphlet, Rattletrap, your allowance, and your defeat, I beg your pardon, but I am sorry to say I did not attend to one word of it: I am thinking of coming events; they have haunted me by day and night. To the election. Our defeat, as you justly observed, is of serious importance: one vote at this critical moment is of unspeakable consequence. Prince Regent is going to assemble Parliament about November. The dismissal of Lord Fitzwilliam from his lord-lieutenatcy is to be discussed; the murder, as the Whigs call it (and I am sorry to say I consider it but little better) of the never-to-be-forgotten sixteenth, is also to be brought before the House; and, my Lords Grey and Erskine will bring all their talents into play, and endeavour to condemn. us before the country: then most likely a general election will follow. The island is in too great a ferment, too much on the side of the Whigs for us to allow (can we but prevent it) such an event to take place. All our energies must be brought forth to dam up this deluge

of an opposition; for, alas! I fear our rule is tottering, and our reign limited; and should we fall, I fear 'twill be some time ere we shall rise again. To frustrate our opponents at this important crisis everything must be sacrificed-self, children, lands, home; but to the point quickly-your sister Sarah is still

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Ah, ah!" said the Marquis, delighted at a loophole to escape from discussing the state of the country, as Lord Grey and Lord Fitzwilliam's deeds were about as interesting to him as the achievements of Rattletrap and the state of the odds had been to his father; "Ah, put Sarah into parliament-petticoat rule? and, as I have heard her argue so learnedly with Warburton on theology, why should she not beat Lord Althorp in a political controversy?"

"Frederick," answered the Duke, "the subject I am about to broach is not to be treated in that light and flippant manner in which you treat most things; I therefore request, my lord, you will give me your deep and undivided attention. Humph! poke the fire, and pass the bottle. Humph! cold night. It is-it-it-is your sister's marriage."

"Sarah's marriage? Why, I thought Lord Arthur Cole's affair was at an end. Is it again on the tapis?"

"No, Frederick, this is another person. Whew! How cold! poke the fire again. It is-it is-it is-the-the-new member, Mr. -Mr.-Mr. Treacle."

"The new member, Mr. Treacle?" roared the Marquis in accents which pourtrayed no little rage and surprise; "and has he dared to think of such a thing for a moment, much less propose it. Is the noble blood of the Plantagenets to be contaminated by a Liverpool merchant? By-to-morrow I will horsewhip him round the market-place."

"Cool yourself, Frederick; you are young, hot, and rash: cool yourself, my boy. He never made any proposal of the kind. It is a plan of my own."

"Yours? Yours? What! Remember his birth, remember his education, remember his breeding."

"Ah! aristocratic recollections, very," said the Duke;"" and do you remember the levelling days of the French revolution? We are all now nearly on an equality, or fast approaching to it. France has bitten the British Isles. Family?-phish!"

"But, my dear father, it is your own child; her future happiness may depend upon our conclusions to-night. O, hear my prayer. I am thoughtless, I am voluptuous, I am extravagant; but I have feelings, my better spirit has not yet been quite damned in the whirpool of dissipation. Oh, hear me! for not only her blissfulness in this world, but in the next, is now at stake. Consider, and I am sure you must agree with me in repudiating this horrible alliance."

"The eminence to which I have sacrificed my talents, my health, and my wealth is not yet gained," said the Duke; "but I am determined it shall be. Do you think that the gambler, who has staked his fortune and happiness on one filicitous hundred, cares for the fifty pounds he loses at a friendly game? or do you think the strong-headed, false-thinking patriot, who thinks he lives but to free

his country from fancied wrongs, cares for the incarceration of one or two followers, or the failure of a trivial circumstance? No; they look and care only for the main. They have but one beacon to steer to; and to attain their ends, they will sacrifice every other earthly

consideration."

"Children?" asked the Marquis.

"Look at the

"Children! yes to be sure," answered the Duke. Morning Post; scarce a week passes but we read in its columns that some penniless lord has given up his coronet for the wealth of some Miss Nobody-knows-who-a rich Nabob's or West-Riding cottonspinner's daughter; why not reverse the order of things, and give a duke's daughter for a millionaire? Gold, you know, covers a multiplicity of faults."

"In the first place, allow me to inquire, as you have not the pleasure of the acquaintance of this lump of brown sugar, how do you purpose bringing about the match ?" asked the Marquis.

"As I have achieved a thousand other difficulties, like Cardinal Wolsey, I have scratched 'impossible' out of my dictionary, and agree with the famous Fouché, who said that word in his language was bad French."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Marquis, not quite feeling his way. "But -"

"But what, my lord?"

"I was going to say that perhaps Mr. Treacle may not be matrimonially inclined, and surely Sarah is not to make the first advances; or he may have a better half; with a pledge or two. don't want him to commit bigamy ?"

You

"No, Frederick, no. You may perhaps have read that once Socrates made such an eloquent speech on the subject of matrimony, that he sent all his hearers (mostly composed of unsusceptible bachelors) back to their homes with the firm determination of enter ing, forthwith, into connubial bliss. I will enact a second Socrates." "Tomkins, my lord," said the fussy Butler, as he came in big with importance, "says, Clear-the-way is taken bad in an inflammation, and wishes you would just come and look at him."

"By" exclaimed the Marquis, "Clear-the-way! Oh, he was to have won me four thousand clear at the next York Meeting! Confound it, how unlucky! That will do, Hemans; tell Tomkins I will be with him in a moment. Now promise me, my dear father, that you will not COMPEL Sarah to marry this fellow against her inclination."

"Certainly," said the Duke; and the Marquis left the room to see his favourite, Clear-the-way.

Lady Sarah Donkeythorne was a weak-minded woman; she had a body, but no soul to guide it, and used to float along the paths of this world as a ship deprived of its rudder would along the sea; she was like a piece of mechanism which, although it propels hugh masses, or heaves immense rocks, nevertheless is still under the guidance and command of its atom of an artificer. A child with wisdom equal to its years might have led Lady Sarah; she never troubled her mind as to the manners, intellect, or birth of her intended, and

held him in the same light as she would a set of diamonds or a new dress; she considered both (diamonds and husband) as conducive to her happiness-as inanimate things, to be boasted of to her female acquaintances, or shown off in a ball room. So it did not require much persuasion on the part of the Duchess to lure her daughter into the scheme of her marriage with Treacle.

The Duke of Donkeythorne's barouche drove up to the Cock and Bottle, where was domiciled our friend and hero, Thomas Treacle, little thinking what plans for his future welfare or harm had been concocted. He was seated in the only private room the house possessed, endeavouring to masticate a tough chicken, around which a fat and capricious stream of what was denominated "GRAVY," with mushrooms, danced in mazy gambols, while the table was shadowed by a pint of inn-sherry. At the Duke's request, he was shown into this room by a dirty, shuffling, unwholesome-looking waiter, with a dirty napkin under his arm.

"His Grace the Duke of Donkeythorne!" exclaimed the officious functionary, as he widely threw open the door.

"Mr. Treacle, I presume," said the Duke, bowing.

A piece of the breast of the capon remained poised midway in the air, t'wixt the M. P's. mouth and paralyzed hand; his mouth became spheric, his nose dilated, and his eyes settled down into a stare; surprise and curiosity were depicted in every part of his countenance at this unlooked for, uncalled for visit.

"Mr. Treacle, I presume," again said his Grace.

"Yes, sir-my lord Duke, I mean."

"Sir, I most humbly apologize" (Treacle being humbly apologized to by a Duke!) "for interrupting you; but as I had a little business in town, I came to congratulate you upon your newly acquired honours, as I consider the best qualities a man can possess is brotherly affection and Christian charity. I have therefore come, although your political opponent, to offer you my best wishes that the career you have selected may prove a felicitous one."

"Hookey Walker!" inwardly ejaculated Mr. Treacle; "all gammon and spinach; I'm not to be done out of my M. P.'ship by the blarney of all the dukes in Christendom. An election is none so cheap.'

"Oh! ah! my lord your grace the Duke," said he, aloud.

"I shall not interrupt you any further, but hope you will give us the pleasure of your company for a couple of days at Donkeythorn." "Perhaps I may" answered Treacle." Have a glass of sherry, my lord Duke?-cost eight-and-tenpence a bottle." (His Grace shuddered at the idea of his future son-in-law; but ambition arose before his gaze).

"No, thank ye, sir. Good morning, good morning. On Monday next we shall see you then."

"Ye'es," faltered Treacle, bolting the leg of a chicken, and taking a good pull at the sherry, and finishing by wiping his mouth with his pocket handkerchief in lieu of a napkin.

We will cursorily pass over the next two months of Mr. Treacle's existence; the strict injunctions of Lawyer Hookem, not to be talked