ing as she was), would have attained the place they did in the aristocratic classes of the country.*

"I have heard," continued Fothergill," upon authority, that he (Sheridan) was in the enjoyment of the proud consciousness of having surmounted the disadvantages of birth and station, and placed himself on a level with the highest and noblest of the land.

"This footing in the society of the great he could only have attained by parliamentary eminence. As a mere writer, with all his genius, he never would have been thus admitted, ad eundem, among them. Their stiffness, coldness, and what I may call inveterate obstinacy in this respect (I speak, however, only of the English great), baffle all conjecture to comprehend it upon the principles of common sense. For if, now and then, a little spark of feeling, prompted by something like classic taste remaining still from former youthful impressions, does arise towards a real genius, who, perhaps, delights the world, it is all instantly repressed and smothered by the drowsy inactivity of our aristocratic prejudices, which, from either the obtuseness or jealousy of their possessors, nothing can shake off. I remember one of these dull dignities at Lord Castleton's,-talking to him of a writer whom Lord Castleton patronized, and who had charmed all the literary world,-observing, with most pompous con

• It has been as soundly as pointedly observed, by Moore, that talents may lead to an association with the great, but never to equality. They are passports through the well-guarded frontier, but no title to naturalization within.

descension, that there was no person he so much

6

wished to know. Very well,' said Lord Castleton, 'nothing more easy, for he will think himself honoured by your acquaintance, and I will be glad to introduce him to your lordship.'

"The peer gave a cold bow, whether of acceptance or evasion might be doubtful, but he never returned to the subject, or mentioned the poet again.

"What is remarkable," added Fothergill, "the gentleman whom he so much wished more than any one to know had been perfectly well known to him at college, but was passed by afterwards in the world.

Say what we will, therefore, for the sake of appearing Mecænases, by him who has not been born among the great, equality of intercourse can only be achieved by politics. In that arena which they look upon as their own, the legislature of the land, let a man of genius, like Sheridan, but assert his supremacy, at once all these barriers of reserve and pride give way, and he takes, by storm, a station at their side, which a Shakspeare or a Newton would but have enjoyed by courtesy.* It is only after death, when their fame is consecrated by posterity, and the puny, temporary self-consequence of their higher contemporaries is forgotten, that the palm of genius, learning, and philosophy becomes equal, and often superior, to that adventitious one of birth and fortune,

* Moore,-485.

or even of military or political celebrity. Who does not love the names of Virgil and Horace more than those of their patrons, Mecenas, or even Augustus, though master of the world?"

CHAPTER XXVII.

MY FELLOW STUDENTS.

This speech of yours hath moved me,

And shall perchance do good: but speak you on :
You look as you had something more to say.

SHAKSPEARE.-King Lear.

THE lectures of my sagacious tutor in moral philosophy (for such I call the conversations in the chapter last recorded) did me as much, or more good than all the academical lore he instilled into me; which was not a little. I began to think I profited by them. It is certain such conversations, by alarming my self-love (if self-respect ought to be so called), went far to correct much of that enthusiasm which Fothergill said belonged to me, and which so blinds us all to the truth of things. I began in earnest (for hitherto I had only flattered myself that I did so) to reflect upon the folly I had been guilty of, in having for a moment thought that a gentleman-farmer's son (for with all my Norman blood, mixed and muddled as it was in its descent, I was no more), could presume to hope to gain the affection of one so much above him as Bertha. Or if, with the fond illusions with which love

can beguile a youth of twenty, I could in fancy think I might one day be beloved, what, short of raving madness, could generate the notion that I could be accepted?

This, and the pictures set before me by Fothergill, of the mischiefs usually attendant upon disproportioned matches, began to tell with me; and the absence, nay, total removal of Foljambe from Oxford, to say nothing of the total rupture of our friendship, contributed to leave my mind open to conviction. And thus for the first time I listened to reason.

I could now, therefore, tread the walks of the place or lose myself in reverie upon a bench in Merton gardens, without hankering after the motions of Bertha's brother, or the fear of overhearing things revolting to my pride.

I began also to know and to be known. Fothergill, who was universally respected for his knowledge of the world as well as his learning, and who acted like a father to me, procured me by his influence a welcome into many academical families, whose female members were by no means to be slighted, either on account of their persons, manners, or cultivation. And though I could not but remember the biting things which in his recklessness (I fear I might say insolence) Foljambe had indulged his satirical vein in laying to their charge, the Foljambe who thus accused them, no longer my friend, no longer possessed that weight with me which made every word he uttered a law.

Exclusive of this, I was myself no longer a freshman, and was as capable as resolved to judge in my