anything but an aid to commerce, seeing that no private merchant could
compete with a royal trader who went out and came in duty-free, yet
certainly the mere companionship and association in risk and gain, and
the common conversation that it made between the affable monarch and
the homeliest trader, served to increase his popularity, and to couple
it with respect for practical sense. Edward IV. was in all this pre-
eminently THE MAN OF HIS AGE,--not an inch behind it or before! And,
in addition to this happy position, he was one of those darlings of
Nature, so affluent and blest in gifts of person, mind, and outward
show, that it is only at the distance of posterity we ask why men of
his own age admired the false, the licentious, and the cruel, where
those contemporaries, over-dazzled, saw but the heroic and the joyous,
the young, the beautiful,--the affable to friend, and the terrible to
foe!

It was necessary to say thus much on the commercial tendencies of
Edward, because, at this epoch, they operated greatly, besides other
motives shortly to be made clear, in favour of the plot laid by the
enemies of the Earl of Warwick, to dishonour that powerful minister
and drive him from the councils of the king.

One morning Hastings received a summons to attend Edward, and on
entering the royal chamber, he found already assembled Lord Rivers,
the queen's father, Anthony Woodville, and the Earl of Worcester.

The king seemed thoughtful; he beckoned Hastings to approach, and
placed in his hand a letter, dated from Rouen. "Read and judge,
Hastings," said Edward.

The letter was from a gentleman in Warwick's train. It gave a glowing