Chapter XVII.

The Hon. General Denbigh was the youngest of three sons. His seniors, Francis and George, were yet bachelors. The death of a cousin had made Francis a Duke, while a child, and both he and his favourite brother George, had decided on lives of inactivity and sluggishness.

"When I die, brother," the oldest would say, "you will succeed me, and Frederic can provide heirs for the name hereafter."

This arrangement had been closely adhered to, and the brothers had reached the ages of fifty-five and fifty-six, without altering their condition.

In the mean time, Frederic had married a young woman of rank and fortune, and the fruits of their union, were the two young candidates for the hand of Isabel Howell.

Francis Denbigh, the eldest son of the General, was diffident of himself by nature, and in addition thereto, it was his misfortune to be the reverse of captivating in his external appearance. The small pox sealed his doom;---ignorance, and the violence of his attack, left him indelibly impressed with the ravages of that dreadful disorder. On the other hand, his brother escaped without any vestiges of the complaint, and his spotless skin, and fine open countenance, met the gaze of his mother,as contrasted with the deformed lineaments of his elder brother. Such an occurrence is sure to excite one of two feelings in the breast of every beholder---pity or disgust---

and, unhappily for Francis, maternal tenderness was unable to counteract the latter sensation in his case. George became a favourite, and Francis a neutral. The effect was now easy to be seen---it was rapid, as it was indelible.

The feelings of Francis were tensitive to an extreme---he had more quickness---more sensibility---more real talents than George--- and all these enabled him to perceive, and the more acutely to feel, the partiality of his mother, to his own prejudice.

As yet, the engagements and duties of the General, had kept his children, and their improvements, out of his sight; but at the ages of eleven and twelve, the feelings of a father, began to pride themselves in the possession of his sons.

On his return from a foreign station, after an absence of two years, his children were ordered from school to meet him. Francis had improved in stature, but not in beauty--- George had flourished in both.

The natural diffidence of the former was increased, by perceiving himself no favourite, and the effects began to show itself in his manners, at no time engaging. He met his father with doubts as to his impressing him favourably, and he saw with anguish, that the embrace received by his brother far exceededin warmth, what had been bestowed on himself.

"Lady Margaret," said the General to his wife, as he followed the retiring boys with his eyes from the dinner table, "it is a thousand pity's George had not been the elder. He would have graced a dukedom or a throne. Frank is only fit for a parson."

This ill-judged speech was uttered sufficiently loud to be overheard by both the sons; on the younger, it made a pleasurable sensation for the moment. His father---his dear father, had thought him fit to be a king---and his father must be a judge, whispered his native vanity---but all this time the connexion between the speech and his brother's rights did not present themselves to his mind.--- George loved this brother too well---too sincerely, to have injured him even in thought; and so far as Francis was concerned, his vanity was as blameless, as it was natural.

The effect produced on the mind of Francis, was both different in substance and degree. It mortified his pride---alarmed his delicacy---and wounded his already morbid sensibility to such an extent, as to make him entertain the romantic notion of withdrawing from the world, and yielding a birthright to one so every way more deserving of it than himself.

From this period, might be dated the opinion of Francis, which never afterwards left him; that he was doing injustice to another,and that other, a brother whom he ardently loved, by continuing to exist. Had he met with fondness in his parents, or sociability in his play-fellows, these fancies would have left him as he grew into life. But the affections of his parents were settled on his more promising brother, and his manners, daily increasing in their repulsive traits, drove his companions to the society of others, more agreeable to their own buoyancy and joy.

Had Francis Denbigh, at this age, met with a guardian, clear-sighted enough to fathom his real character, and competent to direct his course onward, to his great and prominent duties in life, he would yet have become an ornament to his name and country, and a useful member of society. But

no such guide existed. His natural guardians, in his particular case, were his worst enemies---and the boys left school for college four years afterwards, each advanced in their respective properties of attraction and repulsion.

Irreligion is hardly a worse evil in a family than favouritism; when once allowed to exist, acknowledged, in the breast of the parent, though hid apparently from all other eyes--- its sad consequences begin to show themselves --effects are produced, and we look in vain for the cause. The awakened sympathies of reciprocal caresses and fondness, are mistaken for uncommon feelings, and the forbidding aspect of deadened affections miscalled native insensibility.

In this manner the evil increases itself, until manners are formed, and characters created, that must descend, with their possessor, to the tomb.

In the peculiar formation of the mind of Francis Denbigh, the evil was doubly injurious. His feelings required sympathy and softness, when they met only with coldness and disgust. George alone was an exception to the rule. He did love his brother; but even his gayety and spirits, soon tired of the dull uniformity of the diseased habits of his elder.

The only refuge Francis found in his solitude, amidst the hundreds of the university, was in his muse and powers of melody. The voice of his family has been frequently mentioned in these pages. And if, as Lady Laura had intimated, there had ever been a syren in the race, it was a male one. He wrote prettily, and would sing these efforts of his muse, to music of his own, that would often draw crowds around his windows, in the stillness of the night, to listen to sounds, as melodious as they were mournful. His poetical efforts partook of the distinctive character of the man, and were melancholy-- wild--and sometimes pious.

George was always amongst the most admiring of his brother's auditors, and would feel a yearning of his heart towards him at such moments, that was painful. But George was too young, and too heedless, to supply the place of a monitor, or a guide, for Francis, to draw his thoughts into a more salutary train. This was the duty of his parents, and should have been their task. But the world --his rising honours--and his professional engagements, occupied the time of his father; and fashion, parties and pleasure, killed the time of his mother--when they did think of their children, it was of George--the painful image of Francis, was as seldom admitted to disturb their serenity as possible.

George Denbigh was open-hearted, without suspicion, and a favourite.

The first taxed his generosity--the second subjected him to fraud--and the third supplied him with the means. But these means sometimes failed. The fortune of the General, though handsome, was not more than competent to the support of his style of living. He expected to be a duke himself one day, and was anxious to maintain an appearance now, that would not disgrace his future elevation. A system of strict but liberal economy had been adopted in the case of his sons. They had, for the sake of appearance, a stated and equal allowance for each.

The Duke had offered to educate the heir himself, and under his own eye. But to this Lady Margaret had found some ingenious excuse in objection, and one that seemed to herself and the world, as honourable to her natural feeling; but had the offer been made to George, these reasons would have vanished in the desire to advance his interests, orgratify his propensities. Such decisions are by no means uncommon; as parents having once decided on the merits and abilities of their children, frequently decline the interference of third persons, as the improvement of their denounced offspring might bring their own judgment into question, if it did not convey an indirect censure on their justice.

The heedlessness of George, had brought his purse to a state of emptiness. His last guinea was gone, and two months was wanting to the end of his quarter. George had played and been cheated. He had ventured to apply to his mother for small sums, when his dress or some trifling indulgence required an advance; and always with success. But here were sixty guineas gone at a blow--and his pride--his candour, forbade his concealing the manner of his loss, if he made the application. This was dreadful--his own conscience reproached him--and he had so often witnessed the violence of his mother's resentments against Francis, for faults which appeared to him very trivial, not to stand in the utmost dread of her more just displeasure in his present case.

Entering the apartment of his brother, in this disturbed condition, George threw himself into a chair, and with his face concealed between his hands, sat brooding over his forlorn situation.

"George!" said his brother, soothingly,"you are distressed at something?---can I relieve you in any way?"

"Oh! no---no---no---Frank; it is entirely out of your power."

"Perhaps not, my dear brother"---continued the other, endeavouring to draw his hand into his own.

"Entirely!---entirely!" said George. And then, springing up in despair, he exclaimed: "But I must live---I cannot die."

"Live!---die!"---cried Francis, recoiling in horror. "What do you mean by such language. Tell me, George, am I not your brother?---Your only brother and best friend?"

Francis felt he had none, if George was not that friend, and his face grew pale with emotion, as the tears flowed rapidly down his cheeks.

George could not resist such an appeal. He caught the hand of his brother, and made him acquainted with his losses and his wants.

Francis mused some little time over his narration, ere he broke silence with---

"It was all you had?"

"The last shilling," cried George, beating his head with his hand.

"And how much will you require to make out the quarter?"

"Oh I must have at least fifty guineas, or how can I live at all."--The ideas of life in George were connected a good deal with the manner it was to be enjoyed--His brotherappeared struggling with himself, and then turning to the other, continued,

"But surely, under present circumstances you could make less do."

"Less, never--hardly that"--interrupted George vehemently; "If Lady Margaret did not enclose me a note now and then, how could we get along at all--dont you find it so yourself, brother?'

"I don't know," said Francis, turning pale--

"Don't know," cried George, catching a view of his altered countenance--"you get the money though."

"I do not remember it," said the other, sighing heavily.

"Francis," cried George, comprehending the truth, "you shall share every shilling I receive in future--you shall--indeed you shall."

"Well, then," rejoined Francis with a smile, "it is a bargain, and you will receive from me a supply in your present necessities."

Without waiting for an answer, Francis withdrew into an inner apartment, and brought out the required sum for his brother's subsistence for two months--George remonstrated--but Francis was positive; he had been saving, and his stock was ample for his simple habits without it.

"Besides, you forget we are partners, and in the end I shall be a gainer." George yielded to his wants and his brother's entreaties, although he gave him credit for the disinterestedness of the act--several weeks passed over without any further allusion to this disagreeable subject--which had at least the favorable result to make George more guarded and a better student in future.

The brothers, from this period, advanced gradually in the acquiring those distinctive qualities which were to mark the future men-- George daily improving in grace and attraction --Francis in an equal ratio, receding from those very attainments, which it was only his too great desire to possess. In the education of his sons, General Denbigh had preserved the appearance of impartiality; his allowance to each was the same, they were at the same college--they had been at the same school-- and if Frank did not improve as much as his younger brother, it was his own obstinacy and stupidity, and surely not want of opportunity or favour.

Such, then, were the artificial and accidental causes, which kept a noble, a proud, an acute but diseased mind much below in acquirements, another, every way its inferior, excepting in the happy circumstance, of wanting those very excellencies, the excess and indiscreet management of which proved the ruin, instead of blessing of their possessor.

The Duke would occasionally rouse himself from his lethargy, and complain to the father, that the heir of his honours was far inferior to his younger brother in acquirements, and remonstrate against the coursewhich produced such an unfortunate inequality; on these occasions a superficial statement of his system, from the General, met the objection: they cost the same money, and he was sure he not only wished, but did, every thing an indulgent parent could, to render Francis worthy of his future honours--

another evil of the admission of feelings of partiality, in the favour of one child, to the prejudice of another, is that the malady is contagious, as well as lasting: it exists without our own knowledge, and it seldom fails by its influence to affect those around us. The uncle soon learnt to distinguish George as the hope of the family, yet Francis must be the heir of its honours, and consequently its wealth.

The Duke and his brother were not much addicted to action, hardly to reflection--but if any thing could rouse them to either, it was the reputation of the house of Denbigh. Their ideas of reputation, it is true, were of their own forming, but constant dropping wears away the stone.--So long and

confirmed habits were unsettled by incessant broodings on the character of their heir; matrimony became less formidable in their eyes, but the importance of the step still held them in suspence.

The hour at length drew near when George expected a supply from the ill-judged generosity of his mother; it came, and with a heart beating with pleasure, the youth flew to the room of Francis, with a determinationto force the whole of his twenty pounds on his acceptance. On throwing open his door, he saw his brother evidently striving to conceal something behind some books. It was at the hour of breakfast, and George had intended for a novelty to share his brother's morning repast. They always met at dinner, but their other meals were made in their own rooms. George looked in vain for the usual equipage of the table; the truth began to dawn upon him, he threw aside the books, and a crust of bread and glass of water met his eye--

it now flashed upon him in all its force.

"Francis, my brother, to what has my extravagance reduced you,"

exclaimed the contrite George, with a heart nearly ready to burst with his emotion. Francis endeavored to explain, but a sacred regard to the truth held him tongue-tied, until dropping his head on the shoulder of George, he sobbed out-- "It is a trifle, nothing to what I would do for you, my brother."

George felt all the horrors of remorse, and was too generous to conceal his error any longer; he wrote a circumstantial account of the whole transaction to Lady Margaret.

Francis for a few days was a new being-- he had acted nobly, his conscience approved of his motives, and his delicate concealment of them; he in fact began to think there were in himself the seeds of usefulness, as his brother, who from this moment began to understand his character better, attached himself more closely to him as a companion.

The eye of Francis met that of George with the look of acknowledged affection, his mind became less moody, and his face sometimes embellished with a smile.

The reply of their mother to the communication of George threw a damp on these revived hopes of the senior, and drove him back into himself, with tenfold humility.

"I am shocked, my child, to find you have lowered yourself, and forgot the family you belong to, so much as to frequent those gambling houses, which ought not to be suffered in the neighbourhood of the universities; when at a proper age and in proper company, your occasional indulgence at

cards I could not object to, as both your father and myself, sometimes resort to it as an amusement, but never in low company; the consequence of your mingling in such society is, that you were cheated, and such will always be your lot, unless you confine yourself to associates, more becoming your rank and illustrious name.

"As to Francis, I see every reason to condemn the course he has taken.

He should, being the senior by a year, have taken the means to prevent your falling into such company; and he should have acquainted me immediately, with your loss, in place of wounding your pride, by subjecting you to the mortification of receiving a pecuniary obligation,from one so little older than yourself, and exposing his own health by a diet on bread and water, as you wrote me, for a whole month. Both the General and myself are seriously displeased with him, and think of separating you, as you thus connive at each others follies."

George was too indignant to conceal this letter, and the reflections of Francis on it were dreadful.

For a short time he actually meditated suicide, as the only method of removing a child, from the way of impeding the advancement of his more favoured brother, to the wishes of their common parents.

Had not George been more attentive and affectionate than formerly, the awful expedient might have been resorted to.

From college, the young men went, one into the army, and the other to the mansion of his uncle. George became an elegant--- gay---open-hearted--

-admired--captain in the guards; and Francis stalked through the halls of his ancestors, their acknowledged future Lord, but a misanthrope---hateful to himself, and disagreeable to all around him.

This picture may be highly wrought, and the effects in the case of Francis, increased by the peculiar tone of his diseased state of mind. But the indulgence of favouritism always brings its sad consequences, in a greater or less degree, and seldom fails to give sorrow and penitence to the bosom of the parents.