This unhappy attachment, though he never spoke of it, being always but too certain in what it must end, was no secret to Mr. Bacon and his daughter: and when death had dissolved the earthly tie, it seemed to them, as it did to himself, that his affections were wedded to the dead. It was likely that the widower should think so, judging of his friend's heart by his own. Sorrow and Time will ever paint too well The lost when hopeless, all things loved in vain.[7] His feelings upon such a point had been expressed for him by a most prolific and unequal writer, whose poems, more perhaps than those of any other English author, deserve to be carefully winnowed, the grain, which is of the best quality, being now lost amid the heap of chaff. Lord keep me faithful to the trust Which my dear spouse reposed in me: To her now dead, preserve me just In all that should performed be. For tho' our being man and wife Extendeth only to this life, Yet neither life nor death should end The being of a faithful friend.[8] The knowledge that the Doctor's heart was thus engaged at the time of their first acquaintance, had given to Deborah's intercourse with him an easy frankness which otherwise might perhaps not have been felt, and could not have been assumed; and the sister-like feeling into which this had grown, underwent no change after Lucy Bevan's death. He meantime saw that she was so happy with her father, and supposed her father's happiness so much depended upon her, that to have entertained a thought of separating them (even if the suitableness of such a marriage in other respects had ever entered into his imagination), would have seemed to him like a breach of friendship. Yet, if Mr. Bacon had died before he opened his mind to the Doctor upon occasion of Joseph Hebblethwaite's proposal, it is probable that one of the first means of consolation which would have occurred to him, would have been to offer the desolate daughter a home, together with his hand; so well was he acquainted with her domestic merits, so highly did he esteem her character, and so truly did he admire the gifts with which Nature had endowed her,— her sweet humour That was as easy as a calm, and peaceful; All her affections, like the dews on roses, Fair as the flowers themselves, as sweet and gentle.[9] [Footnote 7: ROBERT LANDOR.] [Footnote 8: WITHER.] [Footnote 9: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.] INTERCHAPTER XII. THE AUTHOR REGRETS THAT HE CANNOT MAKE HIMSELF KNOWN TO CERTAIN READERS; STATES THE POSSIBLE REASONS FOR HIS SECRESY; MAKES NO USE IN SO DOING OF THE LICENSE WHICH HE SEEMS TO TAKE OUT IN HIS MOTTO; AND STATING THE PRETENCES WHICH HE ADVANCES FOR HIS WORK, DISCLAIMING THE WHILE ALL MERIT FOR HIMSELF, MODESTLY PRESENTS THEM UNDER A GRECIAN VEIL. Ἔνϑα γαρ τι δεῖ ψεῦδος λεγεσϑαι λεγἐσϑω. HERODOTUS.