He had been wandering for a couple of hours flinging himself on the turf now and again, lying at full length upon his back, and looking up into the unfathomable blue, listening to the skylark soaring above his head, or to the monotonous tap of the woodpecker nearer his ear, or to the too persistent cuckoo, or to the multitudinous hum of that lower life which revelled amidst the grasses and wild flowers where he lay. Life on such a morning is as exhilarating as strong wine; Nature's loveliness mounts to a man's brain, and makes him oblivious of all the cares and sorrows of existence. Herrick Durnford's life was by no means free from care at this period. There was the sordid care of not being sure of a livelihood in the years to come, the knowledge that he had passed the meridian line of youth without having achieved even the commencement of a career. And yet he had begun so well, had made his mark at Trinity College, Cambridge, among some of the cleverest young men of his day, had been on the point of taking honours, when he fell in with Lavendale and his set, and, fascinated by the touch-and-go wit and reckless spirits of that profligate circle, had given himself up to pleasure, and just missed distinction. The eldest son of a country parson with a numerous family, utterly without patrimony, Herrick had contrived to maintain his independence so far by the use of his pen. He had turned his hand to most of the varieties of literature: had written verses, plays, political pamphlets, and even a cookery-book, and his brilliant style and fashionable connections had insured him the countenance of the publishers and the favour of the public. Whether he wrote at Istamboul, Vienna, or Rome, Herrick had always the same tone of good society, and the same air of knowing every detail of the latest scandal. That he had dressed up old stories from the scandalous memoirs of the French Court, and adapted them to Mr. Pulteney and Miss Anna Maria Gumley, or the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Bellenden, or General Churchill and Mrs. Oldfield, was to the credit of his intelligence. "When the public want a new scandal I contrive to find it for them," he said; "and if invention fail, I can at the worst resuscitate an old one." His plays had been performed with various degrees of success; but one, _Faint Hearts_ and _Fair Ladies_, a kind of salad or _olla podrida_ made up of scraps from Davenant, Molière, Wycherley, and Lope de Vega, had run five-and-thirty nights, had been denounced from the pulpit by Bishop Gibson, virulently abused by Jeremy Collier, and had made Mr. Durnford's reputation as a dramatist. When reproached for the reckless licentiousness of his dialogue and the immorality of his plot, Herrick shrugged his shoulders, and replied that his play was not written to be read at family prayers, nor intended for a Christmas present for school-misses of seventeen.