PAUL CLIFFORD, Volume 2.

By Edward Bulwer Lytton




CHAPTER VII.

Begirt with many a gallant slave,
Apparelled as becomes the brave,
Old Giaffir sat in his divan:
. . . . . . .
Much I misdoubt this wayward boy
Will one day work me more annoy.
_Bride of Abydos_.

The learned and ingenious John Schweighaeuser (a name facile to spell and
mellifluous to pronounce) hath been pleased, in that _Appendix continens
particulam doctrinae de mente humana_, which closeth the volume of his
"Opuscula Academica," to observe (we translate from memory) that, "in the
infinite variety of things which in the theatre of the world occur to a
man's survey, or in some manner or another affect his body or his mind,
by far the greater part are so contrived as to bring to him rather some
sense of pleasure than of pain or discomfort." Assuming that this holds
generally good in well-constituted frames, we point out a notable example
in the case of the incarcerated Paul; for although that youth was in no
agreeable situation at the time present, and although nothing very
encouraging smiled upon him from the prospects of the future, yet, as
soon as he had recovered his consciousness, and given himself a rousing