sermon, was strictly and simply a moral essay, such as might have
emanated from any professor's chair. In fact, as I afterwards
learnt, he had given for his text one which the simple rustics
received in all respect, as coming from a higher and holier volume
than Shakspeare--

"Mercy is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest."

And on that text did he dilate; gradually warming with his subject,
till his gestures--which at first had seemed burthened with a queer
constraint, that now and then resulted in an irrepressible twitch of
the corners of his flexible mouth--became those of a man beguiled
into real earnestness. We of Norton Bury had never heard such
eloquence.

"Who CAN he be, John? Isn't it wonderful?"

But John never heard me. His whole attention was riveted on the
speaker. Such oratory--a compound of graceful action, polished
language, and brilliant imagination, came to him as a positive
revelation, a revelation from the world of intellect, the world which
he longed after with all the ardour of youth.

What that harangue would have seemed like, could we have heard it
with maturer ears, I know not; but at eighteen and twenty it
literally dazzled us. No wonder it affected the rest of the
audience. Feeble men, leaning on forks and rakes, shook their old
heads sagely, as if they understood it all. And when the speaker