lighter literature, to the fair favour of the public--they call, perhaps,
more than any species of intellectual culture, for the protection of a
government; and though in me would be a poor selection, the principle
would still be served, and the example furnish precedent for nobler
instances hereafter. I have said all, my Lord!"

Nothing, perhaps, more affects a man of some sympathy with those who
cultivate letters, than the pecuniary claims of one who can advance them
with justice, and who advances them also with dignity. If the meanest,
the most pitiable, the most heart-sickening object in the world, is the
man of letters, sunk into the habitual beggar, practising the tricks,
incurring the rebuke, glorying in the shame, of the mingled mendicant and
swindler;--what, on the other hand, so touches, so subdues us, as the
first, and only petition, of one whose intellect dignifies our whole
kind; and who prefers it with a certain haughtiness in his very modesty;
because, in asking a favour to himself, he may be only asking the power
to enlighten the world?

"Say no more, Sir," said the Earl, affected deeply, and giving gracefully
way to the feeling; "the affair is settled. Consider it utterly so. Name
only the amount of the annuity you desire."

With some hesitation Aram named a sum so moderate, so trivial, that the
Minister, accustomed as he was to the claims of younger sons and widowed
dowagers--accustomed to the hungry cravings of petitioners without merit,
who considered birth the only just title to the right of exactions from
the public--was literally startled by the contrast. "More than this,"
added Aram, "I do not require, and would decline to accept. We have some
right to claim existence from the administrators of the common stock--
none to claim affluence."