These observations of Granville, the result of much experience, as well as natural sagacity, to say nothing of an enviable sang-froid, which enabled him to judge without passion the most passionate set of people in the world, did me a great deal of good; or rather would have done it, had I continued inclined to turn either author or critic. In fact, however, I had not time for either; for all reading and writing was absorbed by official papers.*

* Though Granville having finished his strictures, I will not add to them in his own name, I cannot help here recollecting the sharp cutting-knife of a most trenchant, though a less polished person than Lady Hungerford's admirer; and as there are malignant and ignorant critics, as well as fair and learned ones, while I honour the latter, I would address to the former what Swift says of their mother, in the "Battle of the Books." It will wind up the subject excellently well :

"Meanwhile Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to mind an ancient prophecy, which bore no very good face to his children the moderns, bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity, called Criticism. She dwelt on the top of a snowy

mountain in Nova Zembla: there Momus found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of numberless volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hood-winked and headstrong, yet giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled those of an ass; her teeth fallen out before; her eyes turned inward, as if she looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own gall; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of her

spleen increased faster than the sucking of her children could diminish it.

"Goddess,' said Momus, 'can you sit idly here, while our devout worshippers, the moderns, are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and perhaps now lying under the swords of their enemies? Who, then, hereafter, will ever sacrifice or build altars to our divinities? Haste, therefore, to the British Isle, and, if possible, prevent their destruction; while I make factions among the gods, and gain them over to our party.'

"Momus having thus delivered himself, staid not for an answer, but left the goddess to her own resentment. Up she rose in a rage, and, as it is form on such occasions, began a soliloquy: It is I,' said she, 'who give wisdom to infants and idiots; by me, children grow wiser than their parents; by me, beaux become politicians, and schoolboys judges of philosophy; by me, sophisters debate, and conclude upon the depths of knowledge; and coffee.house wits, instinct by me, can correct an author's style, and display his minutest errors, without understanding a syllable of his matter, or his language; by me, striplings spend their judgment, as they do their estate, before it comes into their hands. It is I who have deposed wit and knowledge from their empire over poetry, and advanced myself in their stead. And shall a few upstart ancients dare oppose me? But come, my aged parents, and you, my children dear, and thou, my beauteous sister; let us ascend my chariot, and haste to assist our devout moderns, who are now sacrificing to us a hecatomb, as I perceive by the grateful smell, which from thence reaches my nostrils.'

"The goddess and her train, having mounted the chariot, which was drawn by tame geese, flew over infinite regions, shedding her influence in due places, till at length she arrived at her beloved island of Britain."

SWIFT's Battle of the Books. Works 2, 301.

CHAPTER XII.

OF THE KIND CONSIDERATION OF LORD CASTLETON, AND THE PLEASANT REMEDY HE APPLIED TO AN INCIPIENT ILLNESS.-I MEET SIR HARRY MELFORD, AND MAKE A NEW AND INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE. EFFECTS OF A DISAP

POINTMENT IN LOVE ON DIFFERENT DISPOSITIONS.-QUESTIONS AS TO WHAT MAY BE ATTRIBUTED TO LOVE, WHAT TO Pride.

A babbled of green fields.

SHAKSPEARE.-Henry V.

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

Hamlet.

THE attention I gave to my official duties, partly from necessity, partly from taste, and greatly from the pleasure which I saw it gave Lord Castleton, had now become so intense, that a pale cheek and a bilious eye proved to my patron that I was overdone. Of this he was himself so guiltless, that he was the first to remark, with a view to relieve it; and, with the consideration that belonged to him, he said to me one day at the close of pressing business which had absorbed many hours, "Industry

in an official can never be but valuable, and joined with talent must lead to fortune. But too much application may defeat itself. Lord Somers indeed, it is said, though a man of polite literature, at last came to like a statute at large as well as he ever did Homer or Virgil; and when another minister fainted away, it was proposed to burn an Act of Parliament under his nose, as the most certain remedy to recover him. But you are not yet so broke in to the trammels of business to feel like them. Perhaps you have come too early and suddenly into laborious office, to which, as to every thing, one ought to be trained; and, as a scholar, you must regret the opportunities you lose for liberal studies, which office seldom gives you time to pursue. Whatever small stock of them I myself possess, I laid in long before I became so actively employed; and though, sometimes, vacare literis is perhaps the best maxim a man of business, particularly of political business, can adopt, it is more wished for than enjoyed. We are so tied to the 'Fumum et opes strepitumque Romæ,'

and the

6

Superba civium potentiorum limina,'

that we sigh for a little wholesome leisure to put our thoughts in order, and recover our classics. This we cannot do in

'The smoke and stir of this dim spot

Which men call London.'

I shall, therefore, instead of sending you to an apothecary, which I must if you stay here, send you to green fields, about which, you know even Falstaff babbled when he was ill and dying. Him, indeed, they did not recover, but you are not so far gone; so my orders to you for to-morrow, instead of the papers I gave you, are to set out for Windsor Forest."

Struck with this kindness, he saw how it overjoyed me; and went on to say, "Truth is, I have a letter from the excellent Manners, intimating that though he recommended you to me as a secretary, he did not design I should steal his pupil from him, or make you forget that there were other books besides those of the Privy Council, and other gardens besides Kensington; in short, Windsor Forest and the Grange. I would therefore advise you to go there now for a day or two; and, for some time to come, to make a regular citizen's holiday of it, and go down to him every Saturday and Sunday; cultivate the muse, listen to his didactics (you may do a worse thing), or wander with him to the Warren House, and come back fresh to your task, which will then not operate as an opiate in regard to the literæ humaniores."

Nothing could fall in better with my own wishes than this considerate plan, which only added still more to my veneration for the accomplished nobleman who proposed it. It may be supposed I pro