remarkable an intellectual prodigy should fill his proper place in our
frail and short-lived catalogue of the worthies of that day. He was the
usual oracle of his neighbourhood, when a condensation of its ideas on any
great event, like the one just mentioned, became necessary. His learning
was justly computed, by comparison, to be of the most profound and erudite
character; and it was very truly affirmed to have astonished more than one
European scholar, who had been tempted, by a fame which, like heat, was
only the more intense from its being so confined, to grapple with him on
the arena of ancient literature. He was a man who knew how to improve
these high gifts to his exclusive advantage. In but one instance had he
ever been thrown enough off his guard to commit an act that had a tendency
to depress the reputation he had gained in this manner; and that was, in
permitting one of his laboured flights of eloquence to be printed; or, as
his more witty though less successful rival, the only other lawyer in the
place, expressed it, in suffering one of his _fugitive_ essays to be
_caught._ But even this experiment, whatever might have been its effects
abroad, served to confirm his renown at home. He now stood before his
admirers in all the dignity of types; and it was in vain for that
miserable tribe of "animalculæ, who live by feeding on the body of
genius," to attempt to undermine a reputation that was embalmed in the
faith of so many parishes. The brochure was diligently scattered through
the provinces, lauded around the tea-pot, openly extolled in the
prints--by some kindred spirit, as was manifest in the striking similarity
of style--and by one believer, more zealous or perhaps more interested
than the rest, actually put on board the next ship which sailed for
"home," as England was then affectionately termed, enclosed in an envelope
which bore an address no less imposing than the Majesty of Britain. Its
effect on the straight-going mind of the dogmatic German, who then filled
the throne of the Conqueror, was never known, though they, who were in the
secret of the trans mission, long looked, in vain, for the signal reward