Who, in the course of his life, hath not been so bewitched, and worshipped some idol or another?  Years after this passion hath been dead and buried, along with a thousand other worldly cares and ambitions, he who felt it can recall it out of its grave, and admire, almost as fondly as he did in his youth, that lovely queenly creature.  I invoke that beautiful spirit from the shades and love her still; or rather I should say such a past is always present to a man; such a passion once felt forms a part of his whole being, and cannot be separated from it; it becomes a portion of the man of to-day, just as any great faith or conviction, the discovery of poetry, the awakening of religion, ever afterwards influence him; just as the wound I had at Blenheim, and of which I wear the scar, hath become part of my frame and influenced my whole body, nay, spirit subsequently, though ’twas got and healed forty years ago.  Parting and forgetting!  What faithful heart can do these?  Our great thoughts, our great affections, the Truths of our life, never leave us.  Surely, they cannot separate from our consciousness; shall follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of their nature divine and immortal.

With the horrible news of this catsstrophe, which was confirmed by the weeping domestics at the Duke’s own door, Esmond rode homewards as quick as his lazy coach would carry him, devising all the time how he should break the intelligence to the person most concerned in it; and if a satire upon human vanity could be needed, that poor soul afforded it in the altered company and occupations in which Esmond found her.  For days before, her chariot had been rolling the street from mercer to toyshop—­from goldsmith to laceman:  her taste was perfect, or at least the fond bridegroom had thought so, and had given her entire authority over all tradesmen, and for all the plate, furniture and equipages, with which his Grace the Ambassador wished to adorn his splendid mission.  She must have her picture by Kneller, a duchess not being complete without a portrait, and a noble one he made, and actually sketched in, on a cushion, a coronet which she was about to wear.  She vowed she would wear it at King James the Third’s coronation, and never a princess in the land would have become ermine better.  Esmond found the ante-chamber crowded with milliners and toyshop women, obsequious goldsmiths with jewels, salvers, and tankards; and mercers’ men with hangings, and velvets, and brocades.  My Lady Duchess elect was giving audience to one famous silversmith from Exeter Change, who brought with him a great chased salver, of which he was pointing out the beauties as Colonel Esmond entered.  “Come,” says she, “cousin, and admire the taste of this pretty thing.”  I think Mars and Venus were lying in the golden bower, that one gilt Cupid carried off the war-god’s casque—­another his sword—­another his great buckler, upon which my Lord Duke Hamilton’s arms with ours were to be engraved—­and a fourth was kneeling down to the reclining goddess with the ducal coronet in her hands, God help us!  The next time Mr. Esmond saw that piece of plate, the arms were changed, the ducal coronet had been replaced by a viscount’s; it formed part of the fortune of the thrifty goldsmith’s own daughter, when she married my Lord Viscount Squanderfield two years after.