But this was too severe a contrast to his late mode of life, and the
prospect soon disgusted him utterly. Having strong influence to back
him, he now thought of getting a seat in Parliament, and for a moment
the prophetic cries of 'Hear! hear!' arose from both sides of a full
House of Commons. But he knew that the occasion, even more than the
man, makes the orator; and in 'this weak piping time of peace,' these
cost-counting, debt-paying days, he foresaw no occasion that could
call forth the thunders of Demosthenes or Burke.--But although a new
light shines in upon him, and he suddenly makes up his mind that,
since he can no longer take the field, because all the world is tired
of fighting, and yet more of paying the bills run up in that expensive
diversion, he will write the narrative of the campaigns in which he
had taken part, without letting the '_quorum pars magna fui_' fill too
large a place in the picture.--Where can he find so much of the
materials needed in the construction of his work as in London? So to
London he went.
The season was at its height, and the town was full. L'Isle's object
required that he should not only examine many musty papers, but see
many persons; as some of his gayer friends soon found him out, and
induced him to look in upon the inner circles of London fashionable
life, to which his early and long absence from England had kept him a
stranger.
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