passages, do not give him a claim to joint authorship, I have been left no option. Nor, indeed, would I allude to this point, but that some parties would perhaps think it unfair on my part not to acknowledge his kindly meant assistance.

Brighton, Feb. 18th, 1852.

WYNVILLE;

OR,

CLUBS AND COTERIES.

CHAPTER I.

MY FAMILY.-THE OLD WHIG COMMONER.

THE Wynvilles have, for upwards of two centuries, ranked creditably amongst the higher gentry of Hampshire. Since the Revolution of 1688, there has been always a member of the family in parliament, and the

VOL. I.

B

portraits at Wynville Manor shew that we can count a respectable complement of generals, admirals, judges, and ambassadors.

In about a hundred-and-twenty years we can point to a couple of cabinet ministers, who owned the broad acres of Wynville Manor. We boast also that the great common law lawyer, Judge Wynville, belonged to our line; and I never entered Westminster Abbey without exulting that its venerable walls enclosed the dust of my grandfather, Admiral Wynville, whose name, though blazoned by no title, shines with a radiance of its own in the naval annals of our island.

Thus our family has always been very honourable, without, however, producing any men of dazzling genins. Our rank in the commonage is eminent; in civil and political history the name is most creditably known; the world of fashion has in two generations

praised the beauty of daughters of the race of Wynville. We have been courted without having been famous; and generally respected, though not publicly revered.

My father was the well-known Right Honourable Frederick Wynville, a stately and dignified specimen of the political clique, known as "old Whigs." He was a man of high character, without great talents; ambitious of being a great man, without the abilities to acquire the fame of one; a politician of gentlemanly conduct and manners, who first followed Fox, and then at the French revolution joined Mr. Burke. From 1793 to 1809 he continued to talk the politics of the old Portland Whigs, and all the school of which Burke was the oracle in those days. Unlike most of his companions, he remained the associate in private of the Foxites, and was more proficient in imitating the habits of

Sheridan and the other brilliant rakes of the time, than dexterous or eloquent in the advocacy of the principles of Mr. Burke.

I remember my father well. Methinks I see him now, as he appeared in 1820, shaking hands with Harry Brougham at the door of Brookes's. His figure was tall and thin. His countenance grave, calm and worn; a Grecian nose; dark small eyes; black brows; and a square forehead, over which a few locks of hairs still clustered. He had a beautiful mouth and teeth; small hands and feet; he dressed with scrupulous neatness; and sat so erect in his saddle, with such an air of dignity, that his figure constantly attracted notice in the streets. There was diffused over his whole person, that indescribable something which so decisively stamps a gentleman of England. Captain Hcharming Mrs. S

(the father of the

the graceful comic