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regret; at least, I never knew but one Lord Waldegrave."

Upon my begging to understand this allusion, he told me that, in the time of George II., Lord Waldegrave, who had been his earliest friend when he first embarked in politics, had continued, against his wish, in the high post of governor of the Prince of Wales, now George III., solely to oblige the king that he laboured to lay down his place for some time in vain, and applying to the Duke of Newcastle to assist him in doing so, his grace was absolutely astonished that such a thing could enter into a man's head, and had not a conception that his situation could be unpleasant. "Perhaps," said Lord Waldegrave, "measuring my feelings. by his own, and thinking that from four years' practice in politics I must have lost all sensibility."*

"No;" continued Lord Castleton. "Believe that there are many more Dukes of Newcastle than Lords Waldegrave, among ministers when they retire. They may put a bold face upon it, and appear to themselves (to use your expression) to quit in triumph. They may even, if they please, fly in the face of the king, and affect to laugh at his court; perhaps heroically abuse his person; but, voluntary or not, there is scarcely one that does * Waldegrave's Memoirs, 70.

not sigh over his departure in secret, and would not hail with joy the moment of his return.”

An opinion thus delivered, and from such an authority, could not fail to have its due weight with me; and I afterwards recorded verbatim, and with pleasure, the particulars of this interesting conversation.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.-MY KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD INCREASES, AS I OBSERVE

THE

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL AND FACTITIOUS GREATNESS.

O! place and greatness, millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee! Volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious guests
Upon thy doings. Thousand 'scapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle fancies.

SHAKSPEARE.-Measure for Measure.

FROM the latter part of the last chapter it may have appeared that of courts and courtiers I had begun to form a pretty fair estimate, neither affecting philosophically to despise them, as those unacquainted with them pretend to do, nor, on the other hand, giving them a consequence to which they are not entitled.

With regard to the philosophic coxcombs who undervalue the great because they are not great themselves, I soon found out their selfish error; for it is most certain there were as many, or, in proportion to their numbers, more men, and women

too, of worth, and certainly of pleasing manners, than in the ranks from which I had been elevated. There was indeed this difference in favour of the great, that where they were selfish, envious, false, revengeful, or malicious, in the same manner as their inferiors were all these, they shewed it not with the same coarseness, and rendered not vice more hideous by their mode of indulging it.

I discovered, too, that what I had been disposed to think without knowing why-namely, that there is a respect which we voluntarily give to greatness, distinct from riches-was true; and that the hold upon opinion which greatness possesses is of a kind, and also of an extent, which riches of themselves cannot attain.

I had sometimes puzzled myself to make this out, but I was now in a field where I could observe it, and I found it arose from the difference in the associations belonging to the two classes of people.

Thus to come to particulars, the reader may perhaps remember a very rich and very foolish Mr. Shanks, at Queen's, the son of a foolish father, but a millionaire. This young minion of wealth, when he knew my position with Lord Castleton, was glad to claim acquaintance with me; nay, made his father call upon me, which forced me to return his visit. I called upon him, therefore, in return, and was let into his fine hall by his fine porter; a fine footman,

with gold-laced kneebands, conducted me to the stairs, and a still finer gentleman in silk stockings asked me whom he should announce. He preceded me to the drawing-room, where I saw crimson and gold chairs, crimson and gold curtains, mirrors in gold, and pictures in gold.

All this while I walked with a firm step and an equal pulse; I had not considered one single moment whether there was any thing in the shape of superiority which might inspire particular reverence in the deity who presided over this temple of Mammon. He was once, as I had been informed, a ragged schoolboy, for whom sometimes another ragged schoolboy made his exercise to save him from a flogging-being in fact a very great dunce. He was afterwards a clerk to a merchant, banker, broker, or what not, till by a fortunate concurrence of circumstances he set up for himself, and by loans, contracts, and other speculations, he achieved his million, and now acts the grandee.

What has such a man done-what is there in his manners, or the associations thrown about him by his life, that should make me consider him one pin's point more than I should have done had I been at school with him, when he could not construe his Cæsar; or in Sun Court (so called, like lucus a non lucendo, because the sun never enters it), where he made his first essay in business, in copying letters, or the " Price Current ?"

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