CHAPTER I.

OF THE HERO'S BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.--NOTHING CAN DIFFER MORE FROM THE END
OF THINGS THAN THEIR BEGINNING.

MY grandfather, Sir Arthur Devereux (peace be with his ashes!) was a
noble old knight and cavalier, possessed of a property sufficiently
large to have maintained in full dignity half a dozen peers,--such as
peers have been since the days of the first James. Nevertheless, my
grandfather loved the equestrian order better than the patrician,
rejected all offers of advancement, and left his posterity no titles but
those to his estate.

Sir Arthur had two children by wedlock,--both sons; at his death, my
father, the younger, bade adieu to the old hall and his only brother,
prayed to the grim portraits of his ancestors to inspire him, and set
out--to join as a volunteer the armies of that Louis, afterwards
surnamed /le grand/. Of him I shall say but little; the life of a
soldier has only two events worth recording,--his first campaign and his
last. My uncle did as his ancestors had done before him, and, cheap as
the dignity had grown, went up to court to be knighted by Charles II.
He was so delighted with what he saw of the metropolis that he forswore
all intention of leaving it, took to Sedley and champagne, flirted with
Nell Gwynne, lost double the value of his brother's portion at one
sitting to the chivalrous Grammont, wrote a comedy corrected by
Etherege, and took a wife recommended by Rochester. The wife brought
him a child six months after marriage, and the infant was born on the
same day the comedy was acted. Luckily for the honour of the house, my
uncle shared the fate of Plemneus, king of Sicyon, and all the offspring
he ever had (that is to say, the child and the play) "died as soon as