CHAPTER VI. A long Interval of Years.--A Change of Mind and its Causes Book VI. CHAPTER I. The Retreat CHAPTER II. The Victory CHAPTER III. The Hermit of the Well CHAPTER IV. The Solution of many Mysteries.--A dark View of the Life and Nature of Man CHAPTER V. In which the History makes a great Stride towards the final Catastrophe. --The Return to England, and the Visit to a Devotee CHAPTER VI. The Retreat of a celebrated Man, and a Visit to a great Poet CHAPTER VII. The Plot approaches its /Denouement/ CHAPTER VIII. The Catastrophe CONCLUSION DEVEREUX. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. OF THE HERO'S BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.--NOTHING CAN DIFFER MORE FROM THE END OF THINGS THAN THEIR BEGINNING. MY grandfather, Sir Arthur Devereux (peace be with his ashes!) was a noble old knight and cavalier, possessed of a property sufficiently large to have maintained in full dignity half a dozen peers,--such as peers have been since the days of the first James. Nevertheless, my grandfather loved the equestrian order better than the patrician, rejected all offers of advancement, and left his posterity no titles but those to his estate. Sir Arthur had two children by wedlock,--both sons; at his death, my father, the younger, bade adieu to the old hall and his only brother, prayed to the grim portraits of his ancestors to inspire him, and set out--to join as a volunteer the armies of that Louis, afterwards surnamed /le grand/. Of him I shall say but little; the life of a soldier has only two events worth recording,--his first campaign and his last. My uncle did as his ancestors had done before him, and, cheap as the dignity had grown, went up to court to be knighted by Charles II. He was so delighted with what he saw of the metropolis that he forswore all intention of leaving it, took to Sedley and champagne, flirted with Nell Gwynne, lost double the value of his brother's portion at one sitting to the chivalrous Grammont, wrote a comedy corrected by Etherege, and took a wife recommended by Rochester. The wife brought him a child six months after marriage, and the infant was born on the same day the comedy was acted. Luckily for the honour of the house, my uncle shared the fate of Plemneus, king of Sicyon, and all the offspring he ever had (that is to say, the child and the play) "died as soon as they were born." My uncle was now only at a loss what to do with his wife,--that remaining treasure, whose readiness to oblige him had been so miraculously evinced. She saved him the trouble of long cogitation, an exercise of intellect to which he was never too ardently inclined. There was a gentleman of the court, celebrated for his sedateness and solemnity; my aunt was piqued into emulating Orpheus, and, six weeks after her confinement, she put this rock into motion,--they eloped. Poor gentleman! it must have been a severe trial of patience to a man never known before to transgress the very slowest of all possible walks,