Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/102

100 The dispute ended as disputes usually do when a lady is really in earnest in the will she expresses to her lover. Lorraine took charge of the packet—was intrusted with the pass-word—and prepared to take his departure reluctantly enough, but still with much of excitement and interest in his expedition. From the eloquent descriptions of the daughter, he had imbibed no little admiration of the father. It must be owned, that Beatrice's character of him was rather his beau idéal than himself. Don Henriquez was a brave and honourable man, with a degree of information rare among his countrymen; but he was not at all the person to be placed in uncommon circumstances. He had seen enough of England to have caught impressions, rather than convictions, of the advantages of a free people; and a good constitution seemed equally necessary to the nation and the individual. But his ideas of liberty were more picturesque than practical. He dwelt on the rights of the people, without considering whether that people were in a state to enforce, or even receive them. He declaimed on tyranny like an ancient, on information like a modern. He forgot that, for change to be useful, it must be gradual; and while enlarging on