ABSTRACT
The stream of our narrative now conducts us back to William Brandon. The law-promotions previously intended were completed; and to the surprise of the public, the envied barrister, undergoing the degradation of knighthood, had, at the time we return to him, just changed his toilsome occupations for the serene dignity of the Bench. Whatever regret this wily and aspiring schemer might otherwise have felt at an elevation considerably less distinguished than he might reasonably have expected, was entirely removed by the hopes afforded to him by the Administration of a speedy translation to a more brilliant office; and it was whispered among those not unlikely to foresee such events, that Sir William Brandon might even look beyond the rank of a Chief Justice and a Peer, and that the Woolsack itself was scarcely too high a station for the hopes of one possessed of such interest, 312 such abilities; and the democrats added, such accommodating principles. Just at this moment too, the fell disease, whose ravages Brandon endeavoured, as jealously as possible, to hide from the public, had appeared suddenly to yield to the skill of a new physician; and by the administration of medicines, which a man less stern or resolute might have trembled to adopt, (so powerful and for the most part deadly was their nature,) he passed from a state of almost insufferable torture to an elysium of tranquillity and ease: perhaps, however, the medicines which altered, also decayed his constitution; and it was observable, that in two cases where the physician had attained a like success by the same means, the patients had died suddenly, exactly at the time when their cure seemed to be finally completed. However, Sir William Brandon appeared very little anticipative of danger. His manner became more cheerful and even than it had ever been before; there was a certain lightness in his gait, a certain exhilaration in his voice and eye, which looked the tokens of one from whom a 244heavy burden had been suddenly raised, and who was no longer prevented from the eagerness of hope by the engrossing claims of a bodily pain. He had always been bland 313 in society, but now his courtesy breathed less of artifice, – it took a more hearty tone. Another alteration was discernible in him, and that was precisely the reverse of what might have been expected. He became more thrifty – more attentive to the expenses of life, than he had been. Though a despiser of show and ostentation, and far too hard to be luxurious, he was too scientific an architect of the weaknesses of others, not to have maintained during his public career an opulent appearance, and a hospitable table. The profession he had adopted requires, perhaps, less of externals to aid it than any other; still Brandon had affected to preserve parliamentary as well as legal importance; and, though his house was situated in a quarter entirely professional, he had been accustomed to assemble around his hospitable board whosoever were eminent, in his political party, for rank or for talent. Now, however, when hospitality, and a certain largeness of expenses, better became his station, he grew closer and more exact in his economy. Brandon never could have degenerated into a miser; money to one so habitually wise as he was, could never have passed from means into an object; but he had, evidently for some cause or another, formed the resolution to save. Some said it was the result of returning health, and the hope of a prolonged life, to which many objects, for which wealth is desirable, might occur. But when it was accidentally ascertained that Brandon had been making several inquiries respecting a large estate in the neighbourhood of Warlock, formerly in the possession of his family, the gossips – (for Brandon was a man to be gossiped about,) – were no longer in want of a motive false or real, for the Judge’s thrift.
