I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; a
very humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had much
credit for; yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.;
proud of the pipe I was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and in
particular, proud of being in the next room to three very
distinguished students, who were then conversing beside the
corridor fire. One of these has now his name on the back of
several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is influential in the law
courts. Of the death of the second, you have just been reading
what I had to say.

And the third also has escaped out of that battle of in which he
fought so hard, it may be so unwisely. They were all three, as I
have said, notable students; but this was the most conspicuous.
Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a reader of
Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like to one of
Balzac's characters, he led a life, and was attended by an ill
fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the COMEDIE
HUMAINE. He had then his eye on Parliament; and soon after the
time of which I write, he made a showy speech at a political
dinner, was cried up to heaven next day in the COURANT, and the day
after was dashed lower than earth with a charge of plagiarism in
the SCOTSMAN. Report would have it (I daresay, very wrongly) that
he was betrayed by one in whom he particularly trusted, and that
the author of the charge had learned its truth from his own lips.
Thus, at least, he was up one day on a pinnacle, admired and envied
by all; and the next, though still but a boy, he was publicly
disgraced. The blow would have broken a less finely tempered
spirit; and even him I suppose it rendered reckless; for he took
flight to London, and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk