There are some readers--they who do not thoroughly consider the truths of this life--who will yet ask, "But how is Lord Lilburne punished?" Punished?--ay, and indeed, how? The world, and not the poet, must answer that question. Crime is punished from without. If Vice is punished, it must be from within. The Lilburnes of this hollow world are not to be pelted with the soft roses of poetical justice. They who ask why he is not punished may be the first to doff the hat to the equipage in which my lord lolls through the streets! The only offence he habitually committed of a nature to bring the penalties of detection, he renounced the moment he perceived there was clanger of discovery! he gambled no more after Philip's hint. He was one of those, some years after, most bitter upon a certain nobleman charged with unfair play--one of those who took the accusation as proved; and whose authority settled all disputes thereon. But, if no thunderbolt falls on Lord Lilburne's head--if he is fated still to eat, and drink, and to die on his bed, he may yet taste the ashes of the Dead Sea fruit which his hands have culled. He is grown old. His infirmities increase upon him; his sole resources of pleasure --the senses--are dried up. For him there is no longer savour in the viands, or sparkle in the wine,--man delights him not, nor woman neither. He is alone with Old Age, and in the sight of Death. With the exception of Simon, who died in his chair not many days after Sidney's marriage, Robert Beaufort is the only one among the more important agents left at the last scene of this history who has passed from our mortal stage.