Such a scene must have been one of deepest interest and high-wrought passion.  A powerful king, conspicuous for a goodness which had heretofore made him meek, and now lofty in his admonitions, with alternate entreaty and reproof, besought his friend to attend to his real interests, resolutely to avoid those fascinations which in fact were fast deserting him, and to spend his great powers on a worthy field, in which he, his sovereign, would be his prop, his stay, and his pioneer.  My father felt this kindness; for a moment ambitious dreams floated before him; and he thought that it would be well to exchange his present pursuits for nobler duties.  With sincerity and fervour he gave the required promise:  as a pledge of continued favour, he received from his royal master a sum of money to defray pressing debts, and enable him to enter under good auspices his new career.  That very night, while yet full of gratitude and good resolves, this whole sum, and its amount doubled, was lost at the gaming-table.  In his desire to repair his first losses, my father risked double stakes, and thus incurred a debt of honour he was wholly unable to pay.  Ashamed to apply again to the king, he turned his back upon London, its false delights and clinging miseries; and, with poverty for his sole companion, buried himself in solitude among the hills and lakes of Cumberland.  His wit, his bon mots, the record of his personal attractions, fascinating manners, and social talents, were long remembered and repeated from mouth to mouth.  Ask where now was this favourite of fashion, this companion of the noble, this excelling beam, which gilt with alien splendour the assemblies of the courtly and the gay—­you heard that he was under a cloud, a lost man; not one thought it belonged to him to repay pleasure by real services, or that his long reign of brilliant wit deserved a pension on retiring.  The king lamented his absence; he loved to repeat his sayings, relate the adventures they had had together, and exalt his talents—­but here ended his reminiscence.

Meanwhile my father, forgotten, could not forget.  He repined for the loss of what was more necessary to him than air or food—­the excitements of pleasure, the admiration of the noble, the luxurious and polished living of the great.  A nervous fever was the consequence; during which he was nursed by the daughter of a poor cottager, under whose roof he lodged.  She was lovely, gentle, and, above all, kind to him; nor can it afford astonishment, that the late idol of high-bred beauty should, even in a fallen state, appear a being of an elevated and wondrous nature to the lowly cottage-girl.  The attachment between them led to the ill-fated marriage, of which I was the offspring.  Notwithstanding the tenderness and sweetness of my mother, her husband still deplored his degraded state.  Unaccustomed to industry, he knew not in what way to contribute to the support of his increasing family.  Sometimes he thought