His neighbour, Mr. Walton, having heard of this affair, generously offered his assistance to accomplish it.  He told him, that though he had long been a stranger to courtiers, yet he believed there were some of them who might pay regard to his recommendation; and that, if he thought it worth the while to take a London journey upon the business, he would furnish him with a letter of introduction to a baronet of his acquaintance, who had a great deal to say with the first lord of the treasury.

When his friends heard of this offer, they pressed him with the utmost earnestness to accept of it.

They did not fail to enumerate the many advantages which a certain degree of spirit and assurance gives a man who would make a figure in the world:  they repeated their instances of good fortune in others, ascribed them all to a happy forwardness of disposition; and made so copious a recital of the disadvantages which attend the opposite weakness, that a stranger, who had heard them, would have been led to imagine, that in the British code there was some disqualifying statute against any citizen who should be convicted of—­modesty.

Harley, though he had no great relish for the attempt, yet could not resist the torrent of motives that assaulted him; and as he needed but little preparation for his journey, a day, not very distant, was fixed for his departure.

CHAPTER XIII—­THE MAN OF FEELING IN LOVE

The day before that on which he set out, he went to take leave of Mr. Walton.—­We would conceal nothing;—­there was another person of the family to whom also the visit was intended, on whose account, perhaps, there were some tenderer feelings in the bosom of Harley than his gratitude for the friendly notice of that gentleman (though he was seldom deficient in that virtue) could inspire.  Mr. Walton had a daughter; and such a daughter! we will attempt some description of her by and by.

Harley’s notions of the ?a???, or beautiful, were not always to be defined, nor indeed such as the world would always assent to, though we could define them.  A blush, a phrase of affability to an inferior, a tear at a moving tale, were to him, like the Cestus of Cytherea, unequalled in conferring beauty.  For all these Miss Walton was remarkable; but as these, like the above-mentioned Cestus, are perhaps still more powerful when the wearer is possessed of souse degree of beauty, commonly so called, it happened, that, from this cause, they had more than usual power in the person of that young lady.