ABSTRACT
Sir Maynard Ellesmere received the foreign friend of his son with the hospitality of an English gentleman, and the politeness of a courtier of fifty years ago. He had almost entirely forgotten his French; but he tried, in favour of D’Alonville’s supposed ignorance of English, to recover such common phrases as he could recollect; which did not however much accelerate the conversation. There was a native and simple civility about D’Alonville, which had not yet been spoiled by the affection of the day. He neither wearied his friends with bows and fine speeches, or, as is now more usual, sat absent or yawning. Sir Maynard was pleased with his manner; and what Edward Ellesmere had related to him of his tender and affectionate attendance of his father, confirmed this impression in his favour. When, therefore, Sir Maynard discovered that he understood English, he found great pleasure in conversing with him; expressed his approbation of his political sentiments; and the first day at dinner made him drink Eternal Confusion to all Dissenters, Roundheads,53 and Sans Cullottes. D’Alonville had no very clear notion of what the two first were; but imagining by their being joined to the other, that they might be the English species of the same genus, he swallowed as much wine as Sir Maynard thought necessary to direct, towards their extirpation. When these potations were at their height, Edward Ellesmere contrived to glide off; for though Sir Maynard did not drink, according to the English meaning of the word, yet there was sometimes a period after dinner when he became extremely eloquent, and insisted, somewhat at large, on his great services to government, the sacrifices he had made, and the hardship he thought it to be discarded after a life so loyally passed, and duties so ably fulfilled. All this was very true; but Edward Ellesmere had heard it so often, that he left his friend, to whom it had at least the advantage of novelty, to listen to it alone; and went up to a little study which had been fitted up for him near his own room, where his second sister presently came to him.
