■WILLIAM TILE THIRD.

7

Eland, now Halifax’s only son, had been affianced to the LadyMary Finch, Nottingham’s daughter. The day of the nuptials •was fixed: a joyous company assembled at Burley on the Hill,the mansion of the bride’s father, which, from one of the noblestterraces in the island, looks down on magnificent woods ofbeech and oak, on the rich valley of Catmos, and on the spireof Oakham. The father of the bridegroom was detained inLondon by indisposition, which was not supposed to bedangerous. On a sudden his malady took an alarming form.He was told that he had but a few hours to live. He receivedthe intimation with tranquil fortitude. It was proposed to sendoff an express to summon his son to town. But Halifax, goodnatured to the last, would not disturb the felicity of the weddingday. He gave strict orders that his interment should be private,prepared himself for the great change by devotions whichastonished those who had called him an atheist, and died withthe serenity of a philosopher and of a Christian, while hisfriends and kindred, not suspecting his danger, were tastingthe sack posset and drawing the curtain. * His legitimate maleposterity and his titles soon became extinct. No small portion,however, of his wit and eloquence descended to his daughter’sson, Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield. But it isperhaps not generally known that some adventurers, who,without advantages of fortune or position, made themselvesconspicuous by the mere force of ability, inherited the blood ofHalifax. He left a natural son, Henry Carey, whose dramasonce drew crowded audiences to the theatres, and some ofwhose gay and spirited verses still live in the memory of hun-dreds of thousands. From Henry Carey descended thatEdmund Kean, who, in our own time, transformed himself somarvellously into Shylock, Iago and Othello.

More than one historian has been charged with partiality to* L’Hermitage, April Jg. 1695; Burnet, ii. 149.

CHAP.

XXI.

1695 .