Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/50

42 your brilliant career for so petty a dignity!—you jest!"

"Not at all,—listen. You know how bitterly I have opposed this peace, and what hot enemies I have made among the new friends of the administration: on the one hand, these enemies insist on sacrificing me; and on the other, if I were to stay in the Lower House and speak for what I have before opposed, I should forfeit the support of a great portion of my own party; hated by one body, and mistrusted by the other, a seat in the House of Commons ceases to be an object. It is proposed that I should retire on the dignity of a Judge, with the positive and pledged, though secret, promise of his Majesty and the Premier, to give me the first vacancy among the chiefs. The place of Chief Justice or Chief Baron is indeed the only fair remuneration for my surrender of the gains of my profession, and the abandonment of my parliamentary and legal career; the title might go (at least, by an exertion of interest) to the eldest son of my niece, in case she married a commoner:—or," added he, after a pause, "her second son in case she married a peer."