his inferior, feel his inferiority. It is only your people themselves of an equivocal caste-not with certainty defined and acknowledged-who, from very fear of their own place, intrench themselves in distance and superciliousness. Men and women of really high consideration can afford to be gracious; if they think they cannot, they are really poor, and you are richer than they. At best, they are mere spoiled children, and as such should be treated, and laughed at like our peacock here.

"Then as to your refinement in the art of selftormenting-your resolve, that a man shall not even think you beneath him, though he shew it not-if so, how will you find it out? Upon my word you are as ingeniously bent upon picking a quarrel as Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Sir, you lie.'- Sir, how can that be, when I have not spoken a word ?'-'Sir, a man may think a lie as well as tell one, and I insist upon your fighting me.””

6

I own I felt this sarcasm; but, not to lose any part of what I wanted, I asked, "Will you let me suppose a case?

"Every one talks of him as a demi-god. The glass of fashion. The observed of all observers.""

"Yes! but observe," said Fothergill, "only for his fashion, and the fashion only for his earldom and his fêtes-circumstances altogether adventitious, having nothing to do with himself. To go on with your passage,

though nursed in courts, he has not the courtier's eye,' much less the soldier's sword,' or the scholar's tongue;' least of all is he

'The rose and expectancy of the fair state.'

In truth, if he had been born in ordinary life, he would be a mighty ordinary fellow. I used to see him at Lord Castleton's, and took measure of him, I assure you. Let me not, however, do him injustice. It seemed to me that he had almost talents enough to rival Gillows in arranging a ball-room, and Negri* in marshalling a supper; which is no small merit. Luckily, he was born great;' but compare him with another peer, who has achieved greatness' and really is the observed of all observers,'-and mark his insignificance.

"To wind up my two peers-the one is the saviour and glory of his country-the other, like his brother exclusives, fruges consumere nati; the one, the noble, the natural, Hotspur; the other, the 'certain lord,' neat, trimly dress'd, who

'Talked so like a waiting gentlewoman.'

"But, after all, why have you mentioned Lord A- ?”

"Merely because I am told he guards his nobility with a triple line of exclusiveness, and is more difficult of access than the king himself. I want to know if this ought to be, or can be borne."

"And why not, if he is really weak enough to think it adds to his consequence, instead, as it does,

* The predecessor of Gunter.

of diminishing it? But what is that to you or me?' For my part, though no cynic, I think of Diogenes sometimes, and wish he could meet this eminent person, that he might reply to him as he did to a supercilious Athenian exclusive, who affected to despise him.

"You stink of garlic,' said the Athenian—“ and you of musk,' returned the cynic.”

Here the conversation went off to other things, but I never forgot it, and it eventually did me good, both at Oxford and in the world. In conjunction, too, with his other lectures, it went far to confirm my actual feeling as to Hastings, and my growing independence of his whole family. I was soon to return into Yorkshire, and I was resolved, when I should be so much nearer to them, to shew that I had recovered my liberty.

Bold in my philosophy, I felt confident even as to Bertha; we shall see with what reason.

CHAPTER XV.

I GO HOME FOR THE LONG VACATION, AND JOIN MY FATHER AT YORK ASSIZES-SEE BERTHA ON THE ROAD. MY MEETINGS WITH THE FAMILY AFTER

WARDS.GREAT

CHANGE IN FOLJAMBE, AND

CONSEQUENT MORTIFICATIONS; BUT MY LOVE FOR

BERTHA IS ONLY INCREASED.

This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
SHAKSFEARE.—Merry Wives of Windsor.

THE long vacation having now begun, I prepared to return home. A branch coach was to take me into the high north road, where another, more direct, was to lodge me at Ferry Bridge. Here my father promised to send me his lad-of-all-work, who upon these occasions was furnished with a groom's coat, of blue hunter's cloth, with yellow cape and cuffs, (the colours of the old Clifford arms), for the sake of preserving some remains of respectability in the faded family.

Faded that family certainly was, almost as much as the livery itself, which was only afforded once a year. This lad was to bring me an old spavined horse, on which my father used generally to ride into York, when he attended the grand jury,—whence he

was to forward it to me at Ferry Bridge, and I join him the next day.

All this fell out accordingly, and I mounted, not much in spirits, although returning after a long absence to a family whom I loved, and who loved me. Possibly my approach to the neighbourhood of Foljambe Park may have instilled a little melancholy into me.

There were two roads from Ferry Bridge to York ; one on the left, as soon as you crossed the bridge, by which you would pass the very gates of Foljambe ; the other to the right, the beaten road by Tadcaster. The last was by far the best, and most frequented; the first the most picturesque, because hilly and overlooking the river.

;

I own I had at first inclined to the Foljambe road but recollecting my Oxford resolutions in regard to separating myself entirely from the family, I rejected it with disdain, and heroically took the Tadcaster way. "that "Hastings shall see," said I to myself,

I am not the abject wretch he thinks me."

This effort lasted for near half a mile; when, the way growing rough, the country flat and dreary, and the river road (that is, the one leading by Foljambe) looking most inviting, I again communed with myself, and thought, that if really there was no comparison for pleasantness between the roads, it was downright cowardice to take the least agreeable, merely to avoid a place which was no longer of consequence to me. The way lay all along by the river, and I loved to look at a river. For these causes, no