RANK AND TALENT; A NOVEL. BY THE AUTHOR OF "TRUCKLEBOROUGH-HALL." When once he's made a Lord, Who'll be so saucy as to think he can Be impotent in wisdom? COOK. Why, Sir, 'tis neither satire nor moral, but the mere passage of an history; yet there are a sort of discontented creatures, that bear a stingless envy to great ones, and these will wrest the doings of any man to their base malicious appliment. MARSTON. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1829. RANK AND TALENT. CHAPTER I. "Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this!" SHAKSPEARE. The season commenced in London much as usual. New faces were prepared, and old ones repaired, for exhibition. All the world was weary of the country; the ocean was monotonous; and the game all killed. Equipages came in one after another. Saloons were lighted up; and every successive night the noise of wheels and brilliancy of town-mansions increased. Cards were handed about; and in the distribution our queer friend, old John Martindale, was not forgotten. Many a saucy, lace-bedizened lacquey sneered at the humble-looking residence of a man whom nobility of the first rank condescended to notice. The report was quickly spread abroad, that old Mr. Martindale had discovered a daughter of the days of his imprudence. Many romantic tales were told of the discovery; and many a wonder-exciting paragraph was inserted in the newspapers, but nobody knew their authors. Brigland may be a famous place for gossip, but London is infamous. Country-made lies and wonders are nothing to be compared with those manufactured, swallowed, printed, and circulated in London.