The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

606 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Ah! changeful head, and fickle heart!
PROGRESS or DISCONTENT.
No event is more ordinary in narratives of this. nature, than the abduction of the female on whose fate the interest is supposed to turn; but that
of Alice Bridgenorth was thus far particular, that she was spirited away by
the Duke of Buckingham, more in contradiction than in the rivalry of'passion; and that, as he made his first addresses to her at Chiffinch's, rather
in the spirit of rivalry to his Sovereign, than from any strong impression
which her beauty had made on his affections, so he had formed the sudden
plan of spiriting her away by means of his dependents, rather to perplex
Christian, the King, Chiffinch, and all concerned, than because he had any
particular desire for her society at his own mansion. Indeed, so far was! this from being the case, that his Grace was rather surprised than delighted
with the success of the enterprise which had made her an inmate there,
although it is probable he might have thrown himself into an uncontrollable
passion, had he learned its miscarriage instead of its success.
Twenty-four hours had passed over since he had returned to his own roof,
before, notwithstanding sundry hints from Jerningham, he could even determine on the exertion necessary to pay his fair captive a visit; and then it
was with the internal reluctance of one who can be only stirred from indolence by novelty.
" I wonder what made me plague myself about this wench," said he, "and
doom myself to encounter all the hysterical rhapsodies of a country Phillis,
with her head stuffed with her grandmother's lessons about virtue and the
Bible-book, when the finest and best-bred women in town may be had upon
more easy terms. It is a pity one cannot mount the victor's car of triumph
without having a victory to boast of; yet, faith, it is what most of our
modern gallants do, though it would not become Buckingham. -Well, I
must see her," he concluded, "though it were but to rid the house of her.
The Portsmouth will not hear of her being set at liberty near Charles, so
much is she afraid of a new fair seducing the old sinner from his allegiance.
So how the girl is to be disposed of —for I shall have little fancy to keep
her here, and she is too wealthy to be sent down to Cliefden as a housekeeper — is a matter to be thought on."
Hle then called for such a dress as miglht set off his natural good miena compliment which he considered as due to his own merit; for as to any
thing farther, he went to pay his respects to his fair prisoner with almost
as little zeal in the cause, as a gallant to fight a duel in which he has no
warmer interest than the maintenance of his reputation as a man of honour.
The set of apartments consecrated to the use of those favourites who occasionally made Buckingham's mansion their place of abode, and who were,
so far as liberty was concerned, often required to observe the regulations of
a convent, were separated from the rest of the Duke's extensive mansion.
He lived in the age when what was called gallantry warranted the most
atrocious actions of deceit and violence; as may be best illustrated by the
catastrophe of an unfortunate actress, whose beauty attracted the attention
of the last De Vere, Earl of Oxford. While her virtue defied his seductions,
he ruined her under colour of a mock marriage, and was rewarded for a
success which occasioned the death of his victim, by the general applause
of the men of wit and gallantry who filled the drawing-room of Charles.
Buckingham had made provision in the interior of his ducal mansion for
exploits of a similar nature; and the set of apartments which he now visited