are now sprawling in Parliament, and lauding themselves as
the authors of their own distinction. He was of a fat habit,
even from boyhood, and inclined to a cheerful and cursory
reading of the face of life; and possibly this attitude of
mind was the original cause of his misfortunes. Beyond this
hint philosophy is silent on his career, and superstition
steps in with the more ready explanation that he was detested
of the gods.

His father - that iron gentleman - had long ago enthroned
himself on the heights of the Disruption Principles. What
these are (and in spite of their grim name they are quite
innocent) no array of terms would render thinkable to the
merely English intelligence; but to the Scot they often prove
unctuously nourishing, and Mr. Nicholson found in them the
milk of lions. About the period when the churches convene at
Edinburgh in their annual assemblies, he was to be seen
descending the Mound in the company of divers red-headed
clergymen: these voluble, he only contributing oracular nods,
brief negatives, and the austere spectacle of his stretched
upper lip. The names of Candlish and Begg were frequent in
these interviews, and occasionally the talk ran on the
Residuary Establishment and the doings of one Lee. A
stranger to the tight little theological kingdom of Scotland
might have listened and gathered literally nothing. And Mr.
Nicholson (who was not a dull man) knew this, and raged at
it. He knew there was a vast world outside, to whom
Disruption Principles were as the chatter of tree-top apes;
the paper brought him chill whiffs from it; he had met
Englishmen who had asked lightly if he did not belong to the