The present Marquess, then the Honourable Sidney Lorraine, prospered in his political career. He was servile, and pompous, and indefatigable, and talkative—so whispered the world:—his friends hailed him as, at once, a courtier and a sage, a man of business, and an orator. After revelling in his fair proportion of commissionerships, and under-secretary-ships, and the rest of the milk and honey of the political Canaan, the apex of the pyramid of his ambition was at length visible, for Sidney Lorraine became President of a board, and wriggled into the adylum of the cabinet.
At this moment his idiot brother died. To compensate for his loss of office, and to secure his votes, the Earl of Carabas was promoted in the peerage, and was presented with some magnificent office—meaning nothing, swelling with dignity, and void of duties. As years rolled on, various changes took place in the adminis-
