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self, a disinterested admirer; and that this timid, hesitating manner of yours, towards me personally, is natural to you, and not put on to hoodwink my misgivings. Yet I'll be bound you have plenty of modest assurance elsewhere! You think, perhaps, that the apparently candid earnestness of your regard for me will beguile me to look upon you with an eye of favour. You would enjoy whispering to me-would'nt you ?-that all you are most proud of talent, station, influence, happiness-all are owing to my lavish fondness for you!

ARISTOCRAT.

I

How cruelly you mock me, Madam! Not a word beyond the simple truth have I spoken; without the slighest arrière-pensée or reserve. own that, in approaching you, I felt confounded, from the sense of my inferiority; I own that I would give the world to find myself less unworthy your regard. For a moment, Madam, make my case yours; and ask your own heart, if any man, of the slightest spirit and ability, could remind himself, without a sigh, that the proudest position in England is still in your gift. But this alone would not have won me, Lady. Never would your intrinsic amability have been revealed to me, had I been compelled to force my way through a crowd of eager and expectant admirers. It was the base desertion of you by your faithless votaries that first attracted me; it is that air of loneliness

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which still rivets me to your service. Yet for this I claim no merit to myself: by nature, I prefer the weaker side, and delight constitutionally in opposition. In my school-days, at cricket, hockey, fives, or football, I always loved being on the side that "could'nt win." With me, this is the ruling passion

"Dear is the helpless creature we defend

Against the world; and dear the—”

PROTECTION (interrupting--with a sigh.)

Be so good, Sir, as to remember you are no longer lounging in the classic portico of the Campagne Diodati, between Julie and Corinne, with "ciear placid Leman" at your feet; but proposing to lead those matter-of-fact worthies, the Electors of Westminster, through the most difficult, because the dullest, of all imaginable controversies.

ARISTOCRAT.

Pardon me, Madam-I-but, before I take my leave of you, will you deign to answer me one simple question?

PROTECTION.

Assuredly; what is it?

ARISTOCRAT. (hurriedly.)

Then, have you any objection to change your

name?

PROTECTION. (blushing.)

What monstrous impudence! if I didn't guess as much!-(aside.) - Pray, Sir, what may you mean?

ARISTOCRAT. (sadly confused.)

O, Madam, I—I merely-was anxious to ascertain-whether you had any-insurmountable dislike to assume the title of Revenue, instead of Protection.

PROTECTION. (smiling.)

And is that really all? Why, was there ever so much ado about nothing? Little care I under what name my just rights are restored to me, so long as I obtain them. Call me what you will, it is all one to me. But tell me, you inconceivable nondescript, what earthly good can this change possibly work for either you or me? Pray, explain to me, as Sosie says,—

"Que te reviendra-t-il de m'enlever mon nom?"

ARISTOCRAT.

In the first place, Madam, I think it might be the means of reconciling to you the 112

PROTECTION.

What! go out of my way to conciliate those "pathetical promise-breakers ?" those dupes of a dupe? Never!

G

ARISTOCRAT.

And yet, Madam, did you but see the sorry figure they now are cutting, out of place, a heart so feeling as yours could scarcely choose but pity

them.

PROTECTION.

I

See them! don't I see them, lounging listlessly round the outskirts of the Woods and Forests in shabby suits of Lincoln green; and don't I listen to them too! never knowing, when they open their mouths, what they mean to say; nor, when they close them, how they mean to vote. rejoice in their evident discomfort, and renounce them for ever. Besides, do you imagine that, when once Lord Stanley has the loaves and fishes to dispense, it will require a miracle to gather up into my basket the fragments of the 112?

ARISTOCRAT.

Well, Madam-By the way; that reminds me. The very last time I dined at the " Trafalgar,”—a charming party-Lady Flounder, who was sitting next to me, suddenly cried out across the table"Sir Peter, my dear, what can be the matter with those boats? 112 of those small craft I counted, as we sat down to dinner, with their heads turned as steadily towards Blackwall, as yours is now on the white-bait-and now, I declare, they all seem to me-it can't be the champagne-to be

falling foul upon one another, and quite in a flutter; for all the world, as if they had a mind to swing round towards the Custom-House.""Why, my love," replied Flounder, without raising his eyes from his plate-" can't you perceive that the tide is beginning to turn?" Depend upon it, Madam, you will find your ci-devant admirers dropping in one by one, with as much composure, as if, poor fellows, they had never been "bought and sold."

PROTECTION.

I readily allow that there is none of the rancour of renegades about them; and how chapfaln they look, as they trudge along mechanically after the Whigs; not from any love they bear them; not because they are Whigs, but simply because they are not Protectionists!

ARISTOCRAT.

Yes; just as Queen Christina used to say, that she was partial to men; not because they were men, but merely because they were not women.

PROTECTION.

You don't mean to tell me the Queen of Spain ever said that?

ARISTOCRAT.

Pardon me, Madam, it was the Queen of Sweden.

-Well, Madam, if you are still so exasperated

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