And make her brown visage as light as her heart,
Till each man illumine his own upper storey
Nor _Law_ trash nor Lawyer shall force us to part.
In Grenville and Spencer
And some few good men, Sir,
High talents and honour slight difference forgive,
But the Brewer we'll hoax;
Tally ho! to the Fox;
And drink Melville for ever as long as we live!"




CHAPTER II

1805-1810

LETTERS OF AN EXILE


To a man far distant from the memorable scene of Lord Melville's trial,
the news of the verdict, sent by Mrs Stanhope, must have caused peculiar
satisfaction.

Among her numerous correspondents at this date, probably few had been more
frequently in her thoughts during the past two years than her kinsman,
Cuthbert Collingwood. From her earliest days, indeed, he had occupied a
certain prominence in her horizon. Her mother, Winifred Collingwood, had
belonged to another branch of the Northumberland family which owned a
common ancestor with that of the afterwards famous Admiral, [1] and this