times _less_ ability, lawn-sleeves would not have given them buoyancy,
but, on the contrary, they would have sunk the bishop irrecoverably;
whilst the curate, favored by obscurity, would have survived for another
chance. So again, and indeed, more than so, as to poetry. Lord Carlisle,
of the last generation, wrote tolerable verses. They were better than Lord
Roscommon's, which, for one hundred and fifty years, the judicious public
has allowed the booksellers to incorporate, along with other refuse of the
seventeenth and eighteenth century, into the costly collections of the
'British Poets.' And really, if you _will_ insist on odious comparisons,
they were not so very much below the verses of an amiable prime minister
known to us all. Yet, because they wanted vital _stamina_, not only they
fell, but, in falling, they caused the earl to reel much more than any
commoner would have done. Now, on the other hand, a kinsman of Lord
Carlisle, viz., Lord Byron, because he brought real genius and power to
the effort, found a vast auxiliary advantage in a peerage and a very
ancient descent. On these double wings he soared into a region of public
interest, far higher than ever he _would_ have reached by poetic power
alone. Not only all his rubbish--which in quantity is great--passed for
jewels, but also what _are_ incontestably jewels have been, and will be,
valued at a far higher rate than if they had been raised from less
aristocratic mines. So fatal for mediocrity, so gracious for real power,
is any adventitious distinction from birth, station, or circumstances of
brilliant notoriety. In reality, the public, our never-sufficiently-to-be-
respected mother, is the most unutterable sycophant that ever the clouds
dropped their rheum upon. She is always ready for jacobinical scoffs at a
man for being a lord, if he happens to fail; she is always ready for
toadying a lord, if he happens to make a hit. Ah, dear sycophantic old
lady, I kiss your sycophantic hands, and wish heartily that I were a duke
for your sake!