instead of the useful support, became the pernicious incumbrance of
society.

Sir Christopher had now recovered his spirits. "What's like a good
action?" said he to Clarence, with a swelling breast.

The park was crowded to excess; our loungers were joined by Lord St.
George. His lordship was a stanch Tory. He could not endure Wilkes,
liberty, or general education. He launched out against the
enlightenment of domestics. [The ancestors of our present footmen, if
we may believe Sir William Temple, seem to have been to the full as
intellectual as their descendants. "I have had," observes the
philosophic statesman, "several servants far gone in divinity, others
in poetry; have known, in the families of some friends; a keeper deep
in the Rosicrucian mysteries and a laundress firm in those of
Epicurus."]

"What has made you so bitter?" said Sir Christopher.

"My valet," cried Lord St. George,--"he has invented a new toasting-
fork, is going to take out a patent, make his fortune, and leave me;
that's what I call ingratitude, Sir Christopher; for I ordered his
wages to be raised five pounds but last year."

"It was very ungrateful," said the ironical Clarence.

"Very!" reiterated the good-hearted Sir Christopher.

"You cannot recommend me a valet, Findlater," renewed his lordship, "a
good, honest, sensible fellow, who can neither read nor write?"