Five years had not passed away without their effects at least upon the exterior being of Cadurcis.  Although still a youth, his appearance was manly.  A thoughtful air had become habitual to a countenance melancholy even in his childhood.  Nor was its early promise of beauty unfulfilled; although its expression was peculiar, and less pleasing than impressive.  His long dark locks shaded a pale and lofty brow that well became a cast of features delicately moulded, yet reserved and haughty, and perhaps even somewhat scornful.  His figure had set into a form of remarkable slightness and elegance, and distinguished for its symmetry.  Altogether his general mien was calculated to attract attention and to excite interest.

His vacations while at Eton had been spent by Lord Cadurcis in the family of his noble guardian, one of the king’s ministers.  Here he had been gradually initiated in the habits and manners of luxurious and refined society.  Since he had quitted Eton he had passed a season, previous to his impending residence at Cambridge, in the same sphere.  The opportunities thus offered had not been lost upon a disposition which, with all its native reserve, was singularly susceptible.  Cadurcis had quickly imbibed the tone and adopted the usages of the circle in which he moved.  Naturally impatient of control, he endeavoured by his precocious manhood to secure the respect and independence which would scarcely have been paid or permitted to his years.  From an early period he never permitted himself to be treated as a boy; and his guardian, a man whose whole soul was concentred in the world, humoured a bent which he approved and from which he augured the most complete success.  Attracted by the promising talents and the premature character of his ward, he had spared more time to assist the development of his mind and the formation of his manners than might have been expected from a minister of state.  His hopes, indeed, rested with confidence on his youthful relative, and he looked forward with no common emotion to the moment when he should have the honour of introducing to public life one calculated to confer so much credit on his tutor, and shed so much lustre on his party.  The reader will, therefore, not be surprised if at this then unrivalled period of political excitement, when the existence of our colonial empire was at stake, Cadurcis, with his impetuous feelings, had imbibed to their fullest extent all the plans, prejudices, and passions of his political connections.  He was, indeed, what the circumstances of the times and his extreme youth might well excuse, if not justify, a most violent partisan.  Bold, sanguine, resolute, and intolerant, it was difficult to persuade him that any opinions could be just which were opposed to those of the circle in which he lived; and out of that pale, it must be owned, he was as little inclined to recognise the existence of ability as of truth.