Such is a brief of old Topertoe, the first Lord of Castle Cumber, who,
by the way, did not wear his honors long, the gout, to which he was a
martyr, having taken him from under his coronet before he had it a year
on his brow. He was one of the men peculiar to his times, or rather who
aided in shaping them; easy, full of strong but gross impulses, quick
and outrageous in resentment, but possessed of broad uncouth humor, and
a sudden oblivion of his passion. Without reading or education--he was
coarse, sensual, careless, and extravagant, having no stronger or purer
principle to regulate him than that which originated in his passions
or his necessities. Of shame or moral sanction he knew nothing, and
consequently held himself amenable to the world on two points only--the
laws of duelling and those of gaming. He would take an insult from no
man, and always paid his gambling debts with honor; but beyond that, he
neither feared nor cared for anything in this world--and being a member
of the Hellfire Club, he did not believe in the other. In fact he was
the very man on whose peculiar temperament and character a corrupt and
wily politician might expect to impress his own principles with success.
Topertoe was consequently not only the very man to sell his country, but
to sell, it at the highest price, and be afterwards the first to laugh,
as he did, at his own corruption.

Of his eldest son, who of course succeeded to his rank and property,
there is not so much to be said at present, because he will appear, to
some extent, as an actor in our drama. It is enough then to say here
that he inherited his father's vices, purged of their vulgarity and
grossness, without a single particle of his uncertain and capricious
good nature. In his manners he appeared more of the gentleman; was
lively, shallow, and versatile; but having been educated at an English
school and an English college, he felt, or affected to feel, all the