fossils, there may be hid under it gems of the purest brilliancy."

"Nay, farther," continued Mr. Silton, "there are two distinct sorts
of what we call bashfulness; this, the awkwardness of a booby, which
a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a
coxcomb; that, a consciousness, which the most delicate feelings
produce, and the most extensive knowledge cannot always remove."

From the incidents I have already related, I imagine it will be
concluded that Harley was of the latter species of bashful animals;
at least, if Mr. Silton's principle is just, it may be argued on
this side; for the gradation of the first mentioned sort, it is
certain, he never attained. Some part of his external appearance
was modelled from the company of those gentlemen, whom the antiquity
of a family, now possessed of bare 250 pounds a year, entitled its
representative to approach: these indeed were not many; great part
of the property in his neighbourhood being in the hands of
merchants, who had got rich by their lawful calling abroad, and the
sons of stewards, who had got rich by their lawful calling at home:
persons so perfectly versed in the ceremonial of thousands, tens of
thousands, and hundreds of thousands (whose degrees of precedency
are plainly demonstrable from the first page of the Complete
Accomptant, or Young Man's Best Pocket Companion) that a bow at
church from them to such a man as Harley would have made the parson
look back into his sermon for some precept of Christian humility.



CHAPTER XII--OF WORLDLY INTERESTS