to a certain extent in the choice of
a husband, is only competent to the superior from whom the fief is originally
derived. There is therefore no violent improbability in a vassal of Burgundy
flying to the protection of the King of France, to whom the Duke of Burgundy
himself was vassal; nor is it a great stretch of probability to affirm that
Louis, unscrupulous as he was, should have formed the design of betraying the
fugitive into some alliance which might prove inconvenient, if not dangerous, to
his formidable kinsman and vassal of Burgundy.
    I may add, that the Romance of QUENTIN DURWARD, which acquired a popularity
at home more extensive than some of its predecessors, found, also, unusual
success on the Continent, where the historical allusions awakened more familiar
ideas.
 
ABBOTSFORD, 1st December 1831.

                                Preface - 1823.2

 
            
                      And one who hath had losses - go to.
                                                         Much ado about Nothing.
 
When honest Dogberry sums up and recites all the claims which he had to
respectability, and which, as he opined, ought to have exempted him from the
injurious appellation conferred on him by Master Gentleman Conrade, it is
remarkable that he lays not more emphasis even upon his double gown (a matter of
some importance in a certain ci-devant capital which I wot of), or upon his
being »a pretty piece of flesh as any in Messina,« or even upon the conclusive
argument of his being »a rich fellow enough,« than upon his being one that hath
had losses.
    Indeed, I have always observed your children of prosperity, whether by way
of hiding their full glow of splendour from those whom fortune has treated more
harshly, or whether that to have risen in spite of calamity is as honourable to
their fortune as it is to a fortress to have undergone a siege - however this
be, I have observed that such persons never fail to entertain you with an
account of the damage they sustain by the hardness of the times. You seldom dine
at a well-supplied table, but the intervals between the champagne, the Burgundy,
and the hock, are filled, if your entertainer be a moneyed man, with the fall of
interest and the difficulty of finding investments for cash, which is therefore
lying idle on his hands; or, if he be a landed proprietor, with a woful detail
of arrears and diminished rents. This hath its effects. The guests sigh and
shake their heads in cadence with their landlord, look on the sideboard loaded
with plate, sip once more the rich wines which flow around them in quick
circulation, and think of the genuine benevolence