THE SORROWS OF IGNORANCE. 243 



with such keen anguish, yet the reverence which grief ever inspires re- 

 strained me for some time from approaching, or inquiring of the ma- 

 jestic mourner what was the woe that overwhelmed her. At length I 

 did so ; and ventured also, mingling the tone of compassion with that of 

 deference, to ask how she was named who sought companionship with 

 the owls and bats of Gatton, and made the dilapidated walls and blasted 

 oaks the confidants of her sorrows. 



She replied, without deigning a look on the person that interrogated 

 her, that her name was Ignorance, and that she was weeping for her 

 children. 



" Gloucester !" I exclaimed ; " can it be that the royal Gloucester is 

 no more? And Cumberland? is it possible that he too is lost to his 

 country ?" 



" No/' replied the figure ; " Gloucester and Cumberland are yet 

 spared me." 



" Then," said I, " the lights of Goulburn and Herries are gone out, 

 and England is dark indeed." 



" You hit not my sorrow," was the answer. 



" Alas ! noble lady !" I then rejoined ; " your loss is then truly heavy. 

 May one who pities and respects your troubles presume to ask their 

 amount ?" 



Instead of replying, she burst out into an uncontrollable flood of 

 grief: her eyes were as fountains; she beat her breasts wildly, tore her 

 hair, and wailed so loud that the screamings of the owls were no longer 

 audible. The accents that escaped her were seldom articulate : it was 

 only at intervals that I could gather from her outcries that the children 

 of which she had been bereaved were the annihilated nomination 

 boroughs. 



" Gatton !" she cried, " where art thou ? where art thou, Gatton ? my 

 prop and my pride, where art thou ? Old Sarum ! I ask for thee in 

 vain. Where is my child ?" 



" An echo answered where ?" 



She proceeded in the same strain of frantic grief, and called on her sweet 

 Callington, her beauteous Boroughbridge, and all the little innocents in 

 turn which the Herods of parliamentary reform had massacred in their 

 indiscriminate fury against vested interests and existing institutions. It 

 was impossible to avoid likening her to " Rachel weeping for her chil- 

 dren and would not be comforted, because they are not." 



When the storm of tears and lamentations had a little subsided, I 

 ventured again to address her. 



ff Be calm," I said, " august lady ! think of the blessings you still 

 enjoy ; you have still a fair, a flourishing, and a numerous offspring. 

 Think of the Church Establishment ; think of six and twenty mitres in 

 England, and twenty-two in Ireland." 



I but touched another chord of her distress. 



" Alas !" she made answer, " my bishops like my boroughs are de- 

 voted to destruction. Already is the bow bent and the arrow pointed. 

 I am like Niobe; my children fall every where around me: I can 

 mourn, but cannot save them." 



" Reform," I rejoined, " is an insatiate archer ; and there are few 

 better marks than a portly prelate ; but be not cast down, noble madam ! 

 recollect your deans and your archdeacons, your prebendaries and your 

 canons ; count the ranks of your rectors, and be comforted." 



