WAVERLEY-HONOUR.----A RETROSPECT.
It is, then, sixty years since<*> Edward Waverley, the hero of * The precise date (1745) was withheld from the original edition, lest it * should anticipate the nature of the tale by announcing so remarkable an era.
the following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment of dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission.
It was a melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted with Sir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and estate he was presumptive heir.
A difference in political opinions had early separated the Baronet from his younger brother Richard Waverley, the father of our hero.Sir Everard had inherited from his sires the whole train of Tory or High-Church predilections and prejudices, which had distinguished the house of Waverley since the Great Civil War.Richard, on the contrary, who was ten years younger, beheld himself born to the fortune of a second brother, and anticipated neither dignity nor entertainment in sustaining the character of Will Wimble.He saw early, that, to succeed in the race of life, it was necessary he should carry as little weight as possible.Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the existence of compound passions in the same features at the same moment: it would be no less difficult for the moralist to analyze the mixed motives which unite to form the impulse of our actions.Richard Waverley read and satisfied himself, from history and sound argument, that, in the words of the old song, Passive obedience was a jest, And pshaw! was non-resistance;yet reason would have probably been unable to combat and remove hereditary prejudice, could Richard have anticipated that his elder brother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early disappointment, would have remained a bachelor at seventy-two.
The prospect of succession, however remote, might in that case have led him to endure dragging through the greater part of his life as ``Master Richard at the Hall, the baronet's brother,'' in the hope that ere its conclusion he should be distinguished as Sir Richard Waverley of Waverley-Honour, successor to a princely estate, and to extended political connections as head of the county interest in the shire where it lay.But this was a consummation of things not to be expected at Richard's outset, when Sir Everard was in the prime of life, and certain to be an acceptable suitor in almost any family, whether wealth or beauty should be the object of his pursuit, and when, indeed, his speedy marriage was a report which regularly amused the neighbourhood once a-year.His younger brother saw no practicable road to independence save that of relying upon his own exertions, and adopting a political creed more consonant both to reason and his own interest than the hereditary faith of Sir Everard in High-Church and in the house of Stewart.He therefore read his recantation at the beginning of his career, and entered life as an avowed Whig, and friend of the Hanover succession.
The ministry of George the First's time were prudently anxious to diminish the phalanx of opposition.The Tory nobility, depending for their reflected lustre upon the sunshine of a court, had for some time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty.But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, with much of ancient manners and primitive integrity, a great proportion of obstinate and unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen opposition, and cast many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois le Duc, Avignon, and Italy.<*> The accession of the near relation of one * Where the Chevalier Saint George, or, as he was termed, the Old Pretender, * held his exiled court, as his situation compelled him to shift his * place of residence.
of those steady and inflexible opponents was considered as a means of bringing over more converts, and therefore Richard Waverley met with a share of ministerial favour, more than proportioned to his talents or his political importance.It was, however, discovered that he had respectable talents for public business, and the first admittance to the minister's levee being negotiated, his success became rapid.Sir Everard learned from the public News-Letter,---first, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, was returned for the ministerial borough of Barterfaith; next, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had taken a distinguished part in the debate upon the Excise bill in the support of government; and, lastly, that Richard Waverley, Esquire, had been honoured with a seat at one of those boards, where the pleasure of serving the country is combined with other important gratifications, which, to render them the more acceptable, occur regularly once a quarter.
Although these events followed each other so closely that the sagacity of the editor of a modern newspaper would have presaged the last two even while he announced the first, yet they came upon Sir Everard gradually, and drop by drop, as it were, distilled through the cool and procrastinating alembic of Dyer's Weekly Letter.<*> For it may be observed in passing, that instead * Long the oracle of the country gentlemen of the high Tory party.The * ancient News-Letter was written in manuscript and copied by clerks, who * addressed the copies to the subscribers.The politician by whom they were * compiled picked up his intelligence at coffee-houses, and often pleaded for * an additional gratuity, in consideration of the extra expense attached to * frequenting such places of fashionable resort.