the preference to be given to £2000 a year over £1000, in addition to the superior official rank, as enabling me to marry; or, rather, enabling me to have a wider field of choice in marriage. I agreed that the appointment would be a facility in that way. "The official rank would go for a good deal with the middle classes, the country gentlemen, and the humdrum aristocracy.* Among the fashionable aristocracy it would not go for much; because my position in that society would hardly be more improved by being under secretary of state than Sir Walter Scott's was-elsewhere than at Selkirk-by being 'the Shirra.' But no doubt the difference between £1000 and £2000 a year is recognized in all classes. . . . As to applications and claims, I am satisfied that my best course is to have nothing to do with them. I know by experience that the parts of candidate and claimant are parts which I cannot perform, and it is in vain for me to undertake them. I know also what her majesty's ministers are made of. am personally acquainted with almost all the members of the present cabinet, and am on terms of rather friendly. acquaintanceship with some of them. Lord had a partiality for me two or three years ago-'absolutely loved me,' as Lady expressed it. That was for the first two seasons after I was known in the world. But Lord's heart is like Iago's purse:

"'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands.'

I

Moreover, my claims are not so strong as they were seven years ago. I was much more zealous and laborious the first eight years of my service than I have been the last seven. And, all these things considered, I hope you will approve of my leaving the government to make me the offer of the place at the suggestion of their own con

*Called by Sydney Smith "The table-land of society-high and flat."

venience if they make it at all-which I think unlikely. The only men in public life on whose friendships I would place any reliance are Gladstone and Lord Aberdeen."

The language of this letter sounds as though I thought cabinet ministers who did not care to be of use to me were to blame. Such language is often thoughtlessly employed when not much is meant. But if I did mean it I

was unreasonable. There was no reason why these gentlemen should take trouble about me simply because they were acquainted with me. And as to the one of them who liked me less when he knew me more, that may very well have come to pass without any fault of his.

Stephen remained where he was; no offer was made to me; and for some years my official life was uneventful.

CHAPTER XVI.

DILIGENT ENDEAVORS OF FRIENDS TO FIND ME A WIFE.

ANNO DOм. 1838-39. ANNO ET. 38-39.

I HAVE spoken of the distress which was suffered by my father and mother and Miss Fenwick through the overthrow of my hopes in April, 1838. And mixed with the sorrow was the fear either that I might not marry at all, or that I might be a long time in finding my way to a wife.

They and other of my friends had for some years been anxious to see me safely married, believing that I would not be happy in single life; and also, perhaps, believing that, through some sudden captivation or some inadvertency of commitment, I might very possibly one day or another make a marriage in which I would be less happy still.

So far as the blankness of celibacy was concerned I had seen no reason to differ from them, even in earlier years; and I had now arrived at an age at which the forecasts of life, never with me very bright, begin to darken, and men are not so self-sufficing as in their youth, while they feel, as well as know, that they will be less and less so in the years to come. When half our threescore years and ten have been left behind we get a glimpse of a still somewhat distant, but what we perceive must be a rather dreary tract to be traversed, if the wayfarer is to perform the journey alone. For, as I expressed it at the time:

"Think what it must be

To watch in solitude our own decay,

Jealously asking of our observation

If ears or eyes or brains or body fail,

And not to see the while new bodies, brains,
New eyes, new ears, about us springing fresh,
And to ourselves more precious than are ours. "*

So much for the alternative of not marrying at all. As to marrying amiss, that was less to be apprehended. I was no longer in the condition of St. Augustine in his youth, when he was "in love with being loved, and hated safety and a way without snares." Under this change of conditions I took counsel with Wulfstan the Wise, as to the sort of marriage which would be suitable for my time of life; and Wulfstan, in his wisdom, made answer thus:

"... Love changes with the changing life of man:

In its first youth sufficient to itself,

Heedless of all beside, it reigns alone,

Revels or storms and spends itself in passion:

In middle age--a garden through whose soil

The roots of neighboring forest trees have crept-
It strikes on stringy customs bedded deep,
Perhaps on alien passions; still it grows,
And lacks not force nor freshness; but this age
Shall aptly choose as answering best its own
A love that clings not nor is exigent,

Encumbers not the active purposes

Nor drains their source; but proffers with free grace
Pleasure at pleasure touched, at pleasure waived;
A washing of the weary traveller's feet,

A quenching of his thirst, a sweet repose,
Alternate and preparative, in groves

Where, loving much the flower that loves the shade,
And loving much the shade that that flower loves,

He yet is unbewildered, unenslaved,

Thence starting light and pleasantly let go

When serious service calls." *

"Edwin the Fair," act ii., sc. 2.

In no long time my friends began to look about and see what resources remained for me. I looked on; and with a view to lighten the gloom of Witton Hall and quicken it with new images and interests I gave minute accounts to my mother (accounts which would by no means conduce to the romance of this history) of the various potential wives that were sought out for me and duly considered. My mother was not well disposed towards London society:

"I think nothing more surely injures a man's happiness than having acquired a taste for the stimulating qualities so much cultivated by women whose sole pursuit is to please in society; that society being also of the light, gay, fashionable sort. . . . The qualities which promote cheerfulness in domestic life may appear dull in society; while the woman who gives her soul to attract admiration, or who is after her own nature the delight and delighted one in company, is, I believe, very rarely cheerful and contented in the sameness of domestic life. And if it is bad for the woman to acquire such tastes, it is no less detrimental that the man should have cultivated his taste to admire these butterflies to the exclusion of more rational companionship."

This was said with reference to one lady in particular; and I said in reply:

"Thanks for your solicitude, but she will do me no harm. Two or three years ago, perhaps, she might; but not now."

And, indeed, I was myself rather tired of London society, as it was of me; and I was not of opinion that it was the place in which a man in my position could expect to find the best of wives.

But London society was the only society to which I had easy or habitual access; and though once in a way I could