With the sound of King George’s trumpets, all the vain hopes of the weak and foolish young Pretender were blown away; and with that music, too, I may say, the drama of my own life was ended.  That happiness, which hath subsequently crowned it, cannot be written in words; ’tis of its nature sacred and secret, and not to be spoken of, though the heart be ever so full of thankfulness, save to Heaven and the One Ear alone—­to one fond being, the truest and tenderest and purest wife ever man was blessed with.  As I think of the immense happiness which was in store for me, and of the depth and intensity of that love which, for so many years, hath blessed me, I own to a transport of wonder and gratitude for such a boon—­nay, am thankful to have been endowed with a heart capable of feeling and knowing the immense beauty and value of the gift which God hath bestowed upon me.  Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name.  He knows not life who knows not that:  he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it.  In the name of my wife I write the completion of hope, and the summit of happiness.  To have such a love is the one blessing, in comparison of which all earthly joy is of no value; and to think of her, is to praise God.

It was at Bruxelles, whither we retreated after the failure of our plot—­our Whig friends advising us to keep out of the way—­that the great joy of my life was bestowed upon me, and that my dear mistress became my wife.  We had been so accustomed to an extreme intimacy and confidence, and had lived so long and tenderly together, that we might have gone on to the end without thinking of a closer tie; but circumstances brought about that event which so prodigiously multiplied my happiness and hers (for which I humbly thank Heaven), although a calamity befell us, which, I blush to think, hath occurred more than once in our house.  I know not what infatuation of ambition urged the beautiful and wayward woman, whose name hath occupied so many of these pages, and who was served by me with ten years of such constant fidelity and passion; but ever after that day at Castlewood, when we rescued her, she persisted in holding all her family as her enemies, and left us, and escaped to France, to what a fate I disdain to tell.  Nor was her son’s house a home for my dear mistress; my poor Frank was weak, as perhaps all our race hath been, and led by women.  Those around him were imperious, and in a terror of his mother’s influence over him, lest he should recant, and deny the creed which he had adopted by their persuasion.  The difference of their religion separated the son and the mother:  my dearest mistress felt that she was severed from her children and alone in the world—­alone but for one constant servant on whose fidelity, praised be Heaven, she could count.  ’Twas after a scene of ignoble quarrel on the part of Frank’s wife and mother (for the poor lad had been made to