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Ward, Robert Plumer

Harper's Stereotype Edition.

DE VERE;

OR, THE

MAN OF INDEPENDENCE.

BY

THE AUTHOR OF "TREMAINE."

My free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself

In a wide sea of wax.-Shakspeare.

Power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring: for good thoughts
(though God accept them), yet, towards men, are little better than good dreams,
except they be put in act: and that cannot be without power and place, as the
vantage and commanding ground.-Bacon.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

NEW-YORK:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. & J. HARPER,
NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET.

AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT THE

UNITED STATES.

1831.
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DE VERE.

CHAPTER 1.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.

Give sorrow words; the grief that will not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.

SHAKSPEARE.

It may be supposed that what had weighed so heavily upon the mind of Constance was not withheld from her aunt, or her friend Lady Clanellan. One part, indeed, of the constitution of our nature is, for the most amiable purposes, so ordered, that the communication whether of grief or joy to a person we love, assuages the one and brightens the other.

Constance had no grief, but she had troubles; and while all the world supposed she was the queen of pleasure as of fashion, and adored her as such with boundless devotion, she was internally, to her own astonishment, fatigued in spirit and unsatisfied in mind.

"What a gay life is yours!" said a young friend to her one day, while every one was admiring her; "what a light heart!" The observation immediately banished the smile that had prompted it; for, as she afterward told Lady Clanellan, she had smiled at nothing, and her heart at that very moment was as heavy as lead.

"You are a most extraordinary girl," said Lady Clanellan; "and could the world see into that little mind of yours, you would be set down either as having lost your senses, or as never having had any to lose."

"The world would be but right," observed Constance. "A fit of sentiment," continued Lady Clanellan," comes over you, because you are afraid of papa, and in consequence you refuse to come to my ball, which was given almost on purpose for you. There were I don't know how many peers of England, counts of France, and

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