But that last picture of rural dignity,
accompanied by your grave and angry surprise at my laughing at what
would have made any court-bred hound laugh, that had but so much as
bayed the moon once from the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame
me. Why, my liefest and dearest lord, you, a young and handsome
fellow, with high birth, a title, and the name of an estate, so well
received by the king at your first starting, as makes your further
progress scarce matter of doubt, if you know how to improve it--for
the king has already said you are a 'braw lad, and well studied in the
more humane letters'--you, too, whom all the women, and the very
marked beauties of the Court, desire to see, because you came from
Leyden, were born in Scotland, and have gained a hard-contested suit
in England--you, I say, with a person like a prince, an eye of fire,
and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your cards on the table when
the game is in your very hand, running back to the frozen north, and
marrying--let me see--a tall, stalking, blue-eyed, fair-skinned bony
wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sort of Lot's wife,
newly descended from her pedestal, and with her to shut yourself up in
your tapestried chamber! Uh, gad!--Swouns, I shall never survive the
idea!"
It is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, from mere
strength of character and principle, to support itself against the
force of ridicule.
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