Pelham — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER LXIII.

  And as for me, tho' that I can but lite On bookes for to read I medelight, And to hem give I faith and full credence; And in mine hearthave hem in reverence, So heartily that there is game none, That fro' mybookes maketh me to gone.--Chaucer.

  Christopher Clutterbuck was a common individual of a common order, butlittle known in this busy and toiling world. I cannot flatter myselfthat I am about to present to your notice that rara avis, a newcharacter--yet there is something interesting, and even unhacknied, inthe retired and simple class to which he belongs: and before I proceedto a darker period in my memoirs, I feel a calm and tranquillizingpleasure in the rest which a brief and imperfect delineation of mycollege companion, affords me. My friend came up to the Universitywith the learning one about to quit the world might, with credit, haveboasted of possessing, and the simplicity one about to enter it wouldhave been ashamed to confess. Quiet and shy in his habits and hismanners, he was never seen out of the precincts of his apartment, exceptin obedience to the stated calls of dinner, lectures, and chapel. Thenhis small and stooping form might be marked, crossing the quadranglewith a hurried step, and cautiously avoiding the smallest blade of thebarren grass-plots, which are forbidden ground to the feet of all thelower orders of the collegiate oligarchy. Many were the smiles andthe jeers, from the worse natured and better appointed students, wholoitered idly along the court, at the rude garb and saturnine appearanceof the humble under-graduate; and the calm countenance of the grave, butamiable man, who then bore the honour and onus of mathematical lecturerat our college, would soften into a glance of mingled approbation andpity, as he noted the eagerness which spoke from the wan cheek andemaciated frame of the ablest of his pupils, hurrying--after eachlegitimate interruption--to the enjoyment of the crabbed charactersand worm-worn volumes, which contained for him all the seductions ofpleasure, and all the temptations of youth.

  It is a melancholy thing, which none but those educated at a collegecan understand, to see the debilitated frames of the aspirants foracademical honours; to mark the prime--the verdure--the glory--thelife--of life wasted irrevocably away in a labor ineptiarum, whichbrings no harvest either to others or themselves. For the poet, thephilosopher, the man of science, we can appreciate the recompence if wecommiserate the sacrifice; from the darkness of their retreat theregoes a light--from the silence of their studies there issues a voice, toillumine or convince. We can imagine them looking from their privationsto the far visions of the future, and hugging to their hearts, in thestrength of no unnatural vanity, the reward which their labours arecertain hereafter to obtain. To those who can anticipate the vastdominions of immortality among men, what boots the sterility ofthe cabined and petty present? But the mere man of languages andlearning--the machine of a memory heavily but unprofitably employed--theColumbus wasting at the galley oar the energies which should havediscovered a world--for him there is no day-dream of the future, nograsp at the immortality of fame. Beyond the walls of his narrow room heknows no object; beyond the elucidation of a dead tongue he indulges noambition; his life is one long school-day of lexicons and grammars--afabric of ice, cautiously excluded from a single sunbeam--elaboratelyuseless, ingeniously unprofitable; and leaving at the moment it meltsaway, not a single trace of the space it occupied, or the labour itcost.

  At the time I went to the University, my poor collegian had attained allthe honours his employment could ever procure him. He had been a Pittscholar; he was a senior wrangler, and a Fellow of his college. It oftenhappened that I found myself next to him at dinner, and I was struck byhis abstinence, and pleased with his modesty, despite of the gaucherieof his manner, and the fashion of his garb. By degrees I insinuatedmyself into his acquaintance; and, as I had still some love ofscholastic lore, I took frequent opportunities of conversing with himupon Horace, and consulting him upon Lucian.

  Many a dim twilight have we sat together, reviving each other'srecollection, and occasionally relaxing into the grave amusement ofcapping verses. Then, if by any chance my ingenuity or memory enabledme to puzzle my companion, his good temper would lose itself in a quaintpettishness, or he would cite against me some line of Aristophanes,and ask me, with a raised voice, and arched brow, to give him a fittinganswer to that. But if, as was much more frequently the case, he fairlyrun me down into a pause and confession of inability, he would rub hishands with a strange chuckle, and offer me, in the bounteousness of hisheart, to read aloud a Greek Ode of his own, while he treated me "toa dish of tea." There was much in the good man's innocence, andguilelessness of soul, which made me love him, and I did not rest till Ihad procured him, before I left the University, the living which henow held. Since then, he had married the daughter of a neighbouringclergyman, an event of which he had duly informed me; but, though thisgreat step in the life of "a reading man," had not taken place manymonths since, I had completely, after a hearty wish for his domestichappiness, consigned it to a dormant place in my recollection.

  The house which I now began to approach was small, but comfortable;perhaps there was something triste in the old-fashioned hedges, cut andtrimmed with mathematical precision, which surrounded the glebe, as wellas in the heavy architecture and dingy bricks of the reverend recluse'shabitation. To make amends for this, there was also something peculiarlystill and placid about the appearance of the house, which must havesuited well the tastes and habits of the owner. A small, formal lawnwas adorned with a square fish-pond, bricked round, and covered withthe green weepings of four willows, which drooped over it, from theirstation, at each corner. At the opposite side of this Pierian reservoir,was a hermitage, or arbour of laurels, shaped in the stiff rusticity ofthe Dutch school, in the prevalence of which it was probably planted;behind this arbour, the ground, after a slight railing, terminated in anorchard.

  The sound I elicited from the gate bell seemed to ring through thatretired place with singular shrillness; and I observed at the oppositewindow, all that bustle of drawing curtains, peeping faces, and hastyretreats, which denote female anxiety and perplexity, at the unexpectedapproach of a stranger.

  After some time the parson's single servant, a middle-aged, slovenlyman, in a loose frock, and buff kerseymere nondescripts, opened thegate, and informed me that his master was at home. With a few earnestadmonitions to my admittor--who was, like the domestics of many richermen, both groom and valet--respecting the safety of my borrowed horse, Ientered the house: the servant did not think it necessary to inquire myname, but threw open the door of the study, with the brief introductionof--"a gentleman, Sir."

  Clutterbuck was standing, with his back towards me, upon a pair oflibrary steps, turning over some dusky volumes; and below stood a pale,cadaverous youth, with a set and serious countenance, that bore no smalllikeness to Clutterbuck himself.

  "Mon Dieu," thought I, "he cannot have made such good use of hismatrimonial state as to have raised this lanky impression of himself inthe space of seven months?" The good man turned round and almost felloff the steps with the nervous shock of beholding me so near him: hedescended with precipitation, and shook me so warmly and tightly by thehand, that he brought tears into my eyes, as well as his own.

  "Gently, my good friend," said I--"parce precor, or you will force me tosay, 'ibimus una ambo, flentes valido connexi foedere.'"

  Clutterbuck's eyes watered still more, when he heard the grateful soundsof what to him was the mother tongue. He surveyed me from head to footwith an air of benign and fatherly complacency, and dragging forth fromits sullen rest a large arm chair, on whose cushions of rusty horse-hairsat an eternal cloud of classic dust, too sacred to be disturbed, heplumped me down upon it, before I was aware of the cruel hospitality.

  "Oh! my nether garments," thought I. "Quantus sudor incrit Bedoso, torestore you to your pristine purity."

  "But, whence come you?" said my host, who cherished rather a formal andantiquated method of speech.

  "From the Pythian games," said I. "The campus hight Newmarket. Do I seeright, or is not
yon insignis juvenis marvellously like you? Of a suretyhe rivals the Titans, if he is only a seven months' child!"

  "Now, truly, my worthy friend," answered Clutterbuck, "you indulge injesting! The boy is my nephew, a goodly child, and a painstaking. I hopehe will thrive at our gentle mother. He goes to Trinity next October.Benjamin Jeremiah, my lad, this is my worthy friend and benefactor, ofwhom I have often spoken; go, and order him of our best--he will partakeof our repast!"

  "No, really," I began; but Clutterbuck gently placed the hand, whosestrength of affection I had already so forcibly experienced, upon mymouth. "Pardon me, my friend," said he. "No stranger should depart tillhe had broken bread with us, how much more then a friend! Go, BenjaminJeremiah, and tell your aunt that Mr. Pelham will dine with us; andorder, furthermore, that the barrel of oysters sent unto us as apresent, by my worthy friend Dr. Swallow'em, be dressed in the fashionthat seemeth best; they are a classic dainty, and we shall think of ourgreat masters the ancients whilst we devour them. And--stop, BenjaminJeremiah, see that we have the wine with the black seal; and--now--go,Benjamin Jeremiah!"

  "Well, my old friend," said I, when the door closed upon the sallow andsmileless nephew, "how do you love the connubiale jugum? Do you givethe same advice as Socrates? I hope, at least, it is not from the sameexperience."

  "Hem!" answered the grave Christopher, in a tone that struck me assomewhat nervous and uneasy, "you are become quite a humourist since weparted. I suppose you have been warming your wit by the lambent fires ofHorace and Aristophanes!"

  "No," said I, "the living allow those whose toilsome lot it is to mixconstantly with them, but little time to study the monuments of thedead. But, in sober earnest, are you as happy as I wish you?"

  Clutterbuck looked down for a moment, and then, turning towards thetable, laid one hand upon a MS., and pointed with the other to hisbooks. "With this society," said he, "how can I be otherwise?"

  I gave him no reply, but put my hand upon his MS. He made a modest andcoy effort to detain it, but I knew that writers were like women, andmaking use of no displeasing force, I possessed myself of the paper.

  It was a treatise on the Greek participle. My heart sickened within me;but, as I caught the eager glance of the poor author, I brightened upmy countenance into an expression of pleasure, and appeared to read andcomment upon the difficiles nugae with an interest commensurate tohis own. Meanwhile the youth returned. He had much of that delicacy ofsentiment which always accompanies mental cultivation, of whatever sortit may be. He went, with a scarlet blush over his thin face, to hisuncle, and whispered something in his ear, which, from the angryembarrassment it appeared to occasion, I was at no loss to divine.

  "Come," said I, "we are too long acquainted for ceremony. Your placensuxor, like all ladies in the same predicament, thinks your invitationa little unadvised; and, in real earnest, I have so long a ride toperform, that I would rather eat your oysters another day!"

  "No, no," said Clutterbuck, with greater eagerness than his eventemperament was often hurried into betraying--"no, I will go and reasonwith her myself. 'Wives, obey your husbands,' saith the preacher!" Andthe quondam senior wrangler almost upset his chair in the perturbationwith which he arose from it.

  I laid my hand upon him. "Let me go myself," said I, "since you willhave me dine with you. 'The sex is ever to a stranger kind,' and I shallprobably be more persuasive than you, in despite of your legitimateauthority."

  So saying, I left the room, with a curiosity more painful than pleasing,to see the collegian's wife. I arrested the man servant, and ordered himto usher and announce me.

  I was led instanter into the apartment where I had discovered all thesigns of female inquisitiveness, which I have before detailed. There Idiscovered a small woman, in a robe equally slatternly and fine, witha sharp pointed nose, small, cold, grey eyes, and a complexion hightowards the cheek bones, but waxing of a light green before it reachedthe wide and querulous mouth, which, well I ween, seldom opened tosmile upon the unfortunate possessor of her charms. She, like the Rev.Christopher, was not without her companions; a tall meagre woman,of advanced age, and a girl, some years younger than herself, wereintroduced to me as her mother and sister.

  My entree occasioned no little confusion, but I knew well how to remedythat. I held out my hand so cordially to the wife, that I enticed,though with evident reluctance, two bony fingers into my own, which Idid not dismiss without a most mollifying and affectionate squeeze; anddrawing my chair close towards her, began conversing as familiarly asif I had known the whole triad for years. I declared my joy at seeingmy old friend so happily settled--commented on the improvement of hislooks--ventured a sly joke at the good effects of matrimony--praiseda cat couchant, worked in worsted by the venerable hand of the eldestmatron--offered to procure her a real cat of the true Persian breed,black ears four inches long, with a tail like a squirrel's; and thenslid, all at once, into the unauthorized invitation of the good man ofthe house.

  "Clutterbuck," said I, "has asked me very warmly to stay dinner; but,before I accepted his offer, I insisted upon coming to see how far itwas confirmed by you. Gentlemen, you are aware, my dear Madam, knownothing of these matters, and I never accept a married man's invitationtill it has the sanction of his lady: I have an example of that at home.My mother (Lady Frances) is the best-tempered woman in the world: but myfather could no more take the liberty (for I may truly call it such) toask even his oldest friend to dinner, without consulting the mistressof the house, than he could think of flying. No one (says my mother, andshe says what is very true,) can tell about the household affairs,but those who have the management of them; and in pursuance of thisaphorism, I dare not accept any invitation in this house, except fromits mistress."

  "Really," said Mrs. Clutterbuck, colouring, with mingled embarrassmentand gratification, "you are very considerate and polite, Mr. Pelham:I only wish Mr. Clutterbuck had half your attention to these things;nobody can tell the trouble and inconvenience he puts me to. If I hadknown, a little time before, that you were coming--but now I fear wehave nothing in the house; but if you can partake of our fare, such asit is, Mr. Pelham--"

  "Your kindness enchants me," I exclaimed, "and I no longer scruple toconfess the pleasure I have in accepting my old friend's offer."

  This affair being settled, I continued to converse for some minutes withas much vivacity as I could summon to my aid, and when I went once moreto the library, it was with the comfortable impression of having leftthose as friends, whom I had visited as foes.

  The dinner hour was four, and till it came, Clutterbuck and I amusedourselves "in commune wise and sage." There was something high in thesentiments and generous in the feelings of this man, which made methe more regret the bias of mind which rendered them so unavailing. Atcollege he had never (illis dissimilis in nostro tempore natis) cringedto the possessors of clerical power. In the duties of his station, asdean of the college, he was equally strict to the black cap and thelordly hat. Nay, when one of his private pupils, whose father waspossessed of more church preferment than any nobleman in the peerage,disobeyed his repeated summons, and constantly neglected to attend hisinstructions, he sent for him, resigned his tuition, and refused anylonger to accept a salary which the negligence of his pupil wouldnot allow him to requite. In his clerical tenets he was high: in hisjudgment of others he was mild. His knowledge of the liberty of Greecewas not drawn from the ignorant historian of her republics; [Note: Itis really a disgrace to the University, that any of its colleges shouldaccept as a reference, or even tolerate as an author, the presumptuousbigot who has bequeathed to us, in his History of Greece, themasterpiece of a declaimer without energy, and of a pedant withoutlearning.] nor did he find in the contemplative mildness and gentlephilosophy of the ancients, nothing but a sanction for modern bigotryand existing abuses.

  It was a remarkable trait in his conversation, that though he indulgedin many references to the old authors, and allusions to classic customs,he never deviated into the innumerabl
e quotations with which his memorywas stored. No words, in spite of all the quaintness and antiquity ofhis dialect, purely Latin or Greek, ever escaped his lips, except in ourengagements at capping verses, or when he was allured into acceptinga challenge of learning from some of its pretenders; then, indeed, hecould pour forth such a torrent of authorities as effectually silencedhis opponent; but these contests were rarely entered into, and thesetriumphs moderately indulged. Yet he loved the use of quotations inothers, and I knew the greatest pleasure I could give him was in thefrequent use of them. Perhaps he thought it would seem like an emptyparade of learning in one who so confessedly possessed it, to deal inthe strange words of another tongue, and consequently rejected them,while, with an innocent inconsistency, characteristic of the man, itnever occurred to him that there was any thing, either in the quaintnessof his dialect or the occupations of his leisure, which might subjecthim to the same imputation of pedantry.

  And yet, at times, when he warmed in his subject, there was a tone inhis language as well as sentiment, which might not be improperly termedeloquent; and the real modesty and quiet enthusiasm of his nature,took away from the impression he made, the feeling of pomposity andaffectation with which otherwise he might have inspired you.

  "You have a calm and quiet habitation here," said I; "the very rooksseem to have something lulling in that venerable caw which it alwaysdoes me such good to hear."

  "Yes," answered Clutterbuck, "I own that there is much that is gratefulto the temper of my mind in this retired spot. I fancy that I can thebetter give myself up to the contemplation which makes, as it were, myintellectual element and food. And yet I dare say that in this (as inall other things) I do strongly err; for I remember that during my onlysojourn in London, I was wont to feel the sound of wheels and of thethrong of steps shake the windows of my lodging in the Strand, as if itwere but a warning to recal my mind more closely to its studies--of averity that noisy evidence of man's labour reminded me how little thegreat interests of this rolling world were to me, and the feeling ofsolitude amongst the crowds without, made me cling more fondly to thecompany I found within. For it seems that the mind is ever addicted tocontraries, and that when it be transplanted into a soil where allits neighbours do produce a certain fruit, it doth, from a strangeperversity, bring forth one of a different sort. You would littlebelieve, my honoured friend, that in this lonely seclusion, I cannotat all times prohibit my thoughts from wandering to that gay world ofLondon, which, during my tarry therein, occupied them in so partiala degree. You smile, my friend, nevertheless it is true; and when youreflect that I dwelt in the western department of the metropolis, nearunto the noble mansion of Somerset House, and consequently in the verycentre of what the idle call Fashion, you will not be so surprised atthe occasional migration of my thoughts."

  Here the worthy Clutterbuck paused and sighed slightly. "Do you farmor cultivate your garden," said I; "they are no ignoble nor unclassicalemployments?"

  "Unhappily," answered Clutterbuck, "I am inclined to neither; my chestpains me with a sharp and piercing pang when I attempt to stoop, and myrespiration is short and asthmatic; and, in truth, I seldom love to stirfrom my books and papers. I go with Pliny to his garden, and with Virgilto his farm; those mental excursions are the sole ones I indulge in; andwhen I think of my appetite for application, and my love of idleness, Iam tempted to wax proud of the propensities which reverse the censure ofTacitus on our German ancestors, and incline so fondly to quiet, whilethey turn so restlessly from sloth."

  Here the speaker was interrupted by a long, low, dry cough, whichpenetrated me to the heart. 'Alas!' thought I, as I heard it, and lookedupon my poor friend's hectic and hollow cheek, 'it is not only his mindthat will be the victim to the fatality of his studies.'

  It was some moments before I renewed the conversation, and I hadscarcely done so before I was interrupted by the entrance of BenjaminJeremiah, with a message from his aunt that dinner would be ready ina few minutes. Another long whisper to Christopher succeeded. Theci-devant fellow of Trinity looked down at his garments with a perplexedair. I saw at once that he had received a hint on the propriety of achange of raiment. To give him due leisure for this, I asked the youthto shew me a room in which I might perform the usual ablutionsprevious to dinner, and followed him upstairs to a comfortless sort ofdressing-room, without a fire-place, where I found a yellow were jugand basin, and a towel, of so coarse a huckaback, that I did not dareadventure its rough texture next my complexion--my skin is not made forsuch rude fellowship. While I was tenderly and daintily anointing myhands with some hard water, of no Blandusian spring, and that vilecomposition entitled Windsor soap, I heard the difficult breathing ofpoor Clutterbuck on the stairs, and soon after he entered the adjacentroom. Two minutes more, and his servant joined him, for I heard therough voice of the domestic say, "There is no more of the wine with theblack seal left, Sir!"

  "No more, good Dixon; you mistake grievously. I had two dozen not a weeksince."

  "Don't know, I'm sure, Sir!" answered Dixon, with a careless and halfimpertinent accent; "but there are great things, like alligators, in thecellar, which break all the bottles!"

  "Alligators in my cellar!" said the astonished Clutterbuck.

  "Yes, Sir--at least a venomous sort of reptile like them, which thepeople about here call efts!"

  "What!" said Clutterbuck, innocently, and evidently not seeing the ironyof his own question; "What! have the efts broken two dozen bottles ina week? Of an exceeding surety, it is strange that a little creatureof the lizard species should be so destructive--perchance they have anantipathy to the vinous smell; I will confer with my learned friend,Dr. Dissectall, touching their strength and habits. Bring up some of theport, then, good Dixon."

  "Yes, Sir. All the corn is out; I had none for the gentleman's horse."

  "Why, Dixon, my memory fails me strangely, or I paid you the sum of fourpounds odd shillings for corn on Friday last."

  "Yes, Sir: but your cow and the chickens eat so much, and then blindDobbin has four feeds a day, and Farmer Johnson always puts his horsein our stable, and Mrs. Clutterbuck and the ladies fed the jackass theother day in the hired donkeychaise; besides, the rats and mice arealways at it."

  "It is a marvel unto me," answered Clutterbuck, "how detrimental thevermin race are; they seem to have noted my poor possessions as theirespecial prey; remind me that I write to Dr. Dissectall to-morrow, goodDixon."

  "Yes, Sir, and now I think of it--" but here Mr. Dixon was cut shortin his items, by the entrance of a third person, who proved to be Mrs.Clutterbuck.

  "What, not dressed yet, Mr. Clutterbuck; what a dawdler you are!--anddo look--was ever woman so used? you have wiped your razor upon mynightcap--you dirty, slovenly--"

  "I crave you many pardons; I own my error!" said Clutterbuck, in anervous tone of interruption.

  "Error, indeed!" cried Mrs. Clutterbuck, in a sharp, overstretched,querulous falsetto, suited to the occasion: "but this is always thecase--I am sure, my poor temper is tried to the utmost--and Lord helpthee, idiot! you have thrust those spindle legs of yours into yourcoat-sleeves instead of your breeches!"

  "Of a truth, good wife, your eyes are more discerning than mine; and mylegs, which are, as you say, somewhat thin, have indued themselves inwhat appertaineth not unto them; but for all that, Dorothea, I am notdeserving of the epithet of idiot, with which you have been pleasedto favour me; although my humble faculties are indeed of no eminent orsurpassing order--"

  "Pooh! pooh! Mr. Clutterbuck, I am sure, I don't know what else you are,muddling your head all day with those good-for-nothing books. And nowdo tell me, how you could think of asking Mr. Pelham to dinner, when youknew we had nothing in the world but hashed mutton and an apple pudding?Is that the way, Sir, you disgrace your wife, after her condescension inmarrying you?"

  "Really," answered the patient Clutterbuck, "I was forgetful of thosematters; but my friend cares as little as myself, about the grossertastes of the table; and the feast of intel
lectual converse is all thathe desires in his brief sojourn beneath our roof."

  "Feast of fiddlesticks, Mr. Clutterbuck! did ever man talk suchnonsense?"

  "Besides," rejoined the master of the house, unheeding thisinterruption, "we have a luxury even of the palate, than which there arenone more delicate, and unto which he, as well as myself, is, I know,somewhat unphilosophically given; I speak of the oysters, sent here byour good friend, Dr. Swallow'em."

  "What do you mean, Mr. Clutterbuck? My poor mother and I had thoseoysters last night for our supper. I am sure she as well as my sisterare almost starved; but you are always wanting to be pampered up aboveus all."

  "Nay, nay," answered Clutterbuck, "you know you accuse me wrongfully,Dorothea; but now I think of it, would it not be better to modulate thetone of our conversation, seeing that our guest, (a circumstance whichuntil now quite escaped my recollection,) was shown into the next room,for the purpose of washing his hands, the which, from their notablecleanliness, seemed to me wholly unnecessary. I would not have himoverhear you, Dorothea, lest his kind heart should imagine me less happythan--than it wishes me."

  "Good God, Mr. Clutterbuck!" were the only words I heard farther: andwith tears in my eyes, and a suffocating feeling in my throat, for thematrimonial situation of my unfortunate friend, I descended into thedrawing-room. The only one yet there, was the pale nephew; he wasbending painfully over a book; I took it from him, it was "Bentleyupon Phalaris." I could scarcely refrain from throwing it into thefire--another victim, thought I--oh, the curse of an English education!By and by, down came the mother and the sister, then Clutterbuck, andlastly, bedizened out with gewgaws and trumpery--the wife. Born andnurtured as I was in the art of the volto sciolto pensieri stretti, Ihad seldom found a more arduous task of dissimulation than that whichI experienced now. However, the hope to benefit my friend's situationassisted me; the best way, I thought, of obtaining him more respect fromhis wife, would be by showing her the respect he meets with fromothers: accordingly, I sat down by her, and having first conciliated herattention by some of that coin, termed compliments, in which there isno counterfeit that does not have the universal effect of real, Ispoke with the most profound veneration of the talents and learning ofClutterbuck--I dilated upon the high reputation he enjoyed--upon thegeneral esteem in which he was held--upon the kindness of his heart--thesincerity of his modesty--the integrity of his honour--in short,whatever I thought likely to affect her; most of all, I insisted uponthe high panegyrics bestowed upon him, by Lord this, and the Earl that,and wound up, with adding that I was certain he would die a bishop. Myeloquence had its effect; all dinner time, Mrs. Clutterbuck treated herhusband with even striking consideration: my words seemed to have giftedher with a new light, and to have wrought a thorough transformation inher view of her lord and master's character. Who knows not the truth,that we have dim and short-sighted eyes to estimate the nature of ourown kin, and that we borrow the spectacles which alone enable us todiscern their merits or their failings from the opinion of strangers! Itmay be readily supposed that the dinner did not pass without its shareof the ludicrous--that the waiter and the dishes, the family and thehost, would have afforded ample materials no less for the studentof nature in Hogarth, than of caricature in Bunbury; but I was tooseriously occupied in pursuing my object, and marking its success, tohave time even for a smile. Ah! if ever you would allure your son todiplomacy, show him how subservient he may make it to benevolence.

  When the women had retired, we drew our chairs near to each other, andlaying down my watch on the table, as I looked out upon the decliningday, I said, "Let us make the best of our time, I can only linger hereone half hour longer."

  "And how, my friend," said Clutterbuck, "shall we learn the methodof making the best use of time? there, whether it be in the largersegments, or the petty subdivisions of our life, rests the great enigmaof our being. Who is there that has ever exclaimed--(pardon my pedantry,I am for once driven into Greek)--Euzexa! to this most difficult of thesciences?"

  "Come," said I, "it is not for you, the favoured scholar--the honouredacademician--whose hours are never idly employed, to ask this question!"

  "Your friendship makes too flattering the acumen of your judgment,"answered the modest Clutterbuck. "It has indeed been my lot to cultivatethe fields of truth, as transmitted unto our hands by the wise men ofold; and I have much to be thankful for, that I have, in the employ,been neither curtailed in my leisure, nor abased in my independence--thetwo great goods of a calm and meditative mind; yet are there moments inwhich I am led to doubt of the wisdom of my pursuits: and when, with afeverish and shaking hand, I put aside the books which have detainedme from my rest till the morning hour, and repair unto a couch oftenbaffled of slumber by the pains and discomforts of this worn and feebleframe, I almost wish I could purchase the rude health of the peasantby the exchange of an idle and imperfect learning for the ignorance,content with the narrow world it possesses, because unconscious of thelimitless creation beyond. Yet, my dear and esteemed friend, there is adignified and tranquillizing philosophy in the writings of the ancientswhich ought to teach me a better condition of mind; and when I haverisen from the lofty, albeit, somewhat melancholy strain, which swellsthrough the essays of the graceful and tender Cicero, I have indeed felta momentary satisfaction at my studies, and an elation even at thepetty success with which I have cherished them. But these are brief andfleeting moments, and deserve chastisement for their pride. There is onething, my Pelham, which has grieved me bitterly of late, and thatis, that in the earnest attention which it is the--perhapsfastidious--custom of our University, to pay to the minutiae of classiclore, I do now oftentimes lose the spirit and beauty of the generalbearing; nay, I derive a far greater pleasure from the ingeniousamendment of a perverted text, than from all the turn and thought of thesense itself: while I am straightening a crooked nail in the wine-cask,I suffer the wine to evaporate; but to this I am somewhat reconciled,when I reflect that it was also the misfortune of the great Porson, andthe elaborate Parr, men with whom I blush to find myself included in thesame sentence."

  "My friend," said I, "I wish neither to wound your modesty, nor toimpugn your pursuits; but think you not that it would be better, bothfor men and for yourself, that, while you are yet in the vigour of yourage and reason, you occupy your ingenuity and application in some moreuseful and lofty work, than that which you suffered me to glance at inyour library; and moreover, as the great object of him who would perfecthis mind, is first to strengthen the faculties of his body, would itnot be prudent in you to lessen for a time your devotion to books; toexercise yourself in the fresh air--to relax the bow, by loosing thestring; to mix more with the living, and impart to men in conversation,as well as in writing, whatever the incessant labour of many yearsmay have hoarded? Come, if not to town, at least to its vicinity; theprofits of your living, if even tolerably managed, will enable you todo so without inconvenience. Leave your books to their shelves, and yourflock to their curate, and--you shake your head--do I displease you?"

  "No, no, my kind and generous adviser--but as the twig was set, the treemust grow. I have not been without that ambition which, however vain andsinful, is the first passion to enter the wayward and tossing vessel ofour soul, and the last to leave its stranded and shattered wreck; butmine found and attained its object at an age, when in others it is, asyet, a vague and unsettled feeling; and it feeds now rather upon therecollections of what has been, than ventures forward on a sea ofuntried and strange expectation. As for my studies! how can you, whohave, and in no moderate draught, drank of the old stream of Castaly,how can you ask me now to change them? Are not the ancients my food, myaliment, my solace in sorrow--my sympathizers, my very benefactors,in joy? Take them away from me, and you take away the very winds whichpurify and give motion to the obscure and silent current of my life.Besides, my Pelham, it cannot have escaped your observation, that thereis little in my present state which promises a long increase of days:the few that remain to me must
glide away like their predecessors;and whatever be the infirmities of my body, and the little harassmentswhich, I am led to suspect, do occasionally molest the most fortunate,who link themselves unto the unstable and fluctuating part of creation,which we term women, more especially in an hymeneal capacity--whateverthese may be, I have my refuge and my comforter in the golden-souledand dreaming Plato, and the sententious wisdom of the less imaginativeSeneca. Nor, when I am reminded of my approaching dissolution by thesymptoms which do mostly at the midnight hour press themselves upon me,is there a small and inglorious pleasure in the hope that I may meethereafter, in those islands of the blest which they dimly dreamt of, butwhich are opened unto my vision, without a cloud, or mist, or shadowof uncertainty and doubt, with those bright spirits which we do nowconverse with so imperfectly; that I may catch from the very lips ofHomer the unclouded gorgeousness of fiction, and from the accents ofArchimedes, the unadulterated calculations of truth."

  Clutterbuck ceased, and the glow of his enthusiasm diffused itself overhis sunken eye and consumptive cheek. The boy, who had sat apart, andsilent, during our discourse, laid his head upon the table, and sobbedaudibly; and I rose, deeply affected, to offer to one for whom theywere, indeed, unavailing, the wishes and blessing of an eager, but nothardened disciple of the world. We parted: on this earth we can nevermeet again. The light has wasted itself away beneath the bushel. Itwill be six weeks to-morrow since the meek and noble-minded academicianbreathed his last.