honest gentleman, by a
grave mysterious demeanour, an attention to the etiquette of business, rather
more than to its essence, a facility in making long dull speeches, consisting of
truisms and common-places, hashed up with a technical jargon of office, which
prevented the inanity of his orations from being discovered, had acquired a
certain name and credit in public life, and even established, with many, the
character of a profound politician; none of your shining orators, indeed, whose
talents evaporate in tropes of rhetoric and flashes of wit, but one possessed of
steady parts for business, which would wear well, as the ladies say in choosing
their silks, and ought in all reason to be good for common and every-day use,
since they were confessedly formed of no holiday texture.
    This faith had become so general, that the insurgent party in the Cabinet of
which we have made mention, after sounding Mr. Richard Waverley, were so
satisfied with his sentiments and abilities, as to propose, that, in case of a
certain revolution in the ministry, he should take an ostensible place in the
new order of things, not indeed of the very first rank, but greatly higher, in
point both of emolument and influence, than that which he now enjoyed. There was
no resisting so tempting a proposal, notwithstanding that the Great Man, under
whose patronage he had enlisted, and by whose banner he had hitherto stood firm,
was the principal object of the proposed attack by the new allies. Unfortunately
this fair scheme of ambition was blighted in the very bud, by a premature
movement. All the official gentlemen concerned in it, who hesitated to take the
part of a voluntary resignation, were informed that the king had no further
occasion for their services; and, in Richard Waverley's case, which the Minister
considered as aggravated by ingratitude, dismissal was accompanied by something
like personal contempt and contumely. The public, and even the party of whom he
shared the fall, sympathized little in the disappointment of this selfish and
interested statesman; and he retired to the country under the comfortable
reflection, that he had lost, at the same time, character, credit, and, - what
he at least equally deplored, - emolument.
    Richard Waverley's letter to his son upon this occasion was a masterpiece of
its kind. Aristides himself could not have made out a harder case. An unjust
monarch, and an ungrateful country, were the burden of each rounded paragraph.
He spoke of long services, and unrequited sacrifices; though the former had been
overpaid by his salary