then I would gradually edge myself on, till I got possession of half his
chair, and established a place for my elbow on the table. I remember one
day sitting for an hour together, turning from one person to another as
each spoke, incapable of comprehending their arguments, but fully
understanding the vehemence of their tones, and sympathizing in the varying
expression of passion; as to the rest, quite satisfied with making out
which speaker was _for_, and which against the Jews. All those who were
against them, I considered as my father's friends; all those who were _for_
them, I called by a common misnomer, or metonymy of the passions, my
father's enemies, because my father was their enemy. The feeling of party
spirit, which is caught by children as quickly as it is revealed by men,
now combined to strengthen still more and to exasperate my early
prepossession. Astonished by the attention with which I had this day
listened to all that seemed so unlikely to interest a boy of my age, my
father, with a smile and a wink, and a side nod of his head, not meant, I
suppose, for me to see, but which I noticed the more, pointed me out to the
company, by whom it was unanimously agreed, that my attention was a proof
of uncommon abilities, and an early decided taste for public business.
Young Lord Mowbray, a boy two years older than myself, a gawkee schoolboy,
was present; and had, during this long hour after dinner, manifested sundry
symptoms of impatience, and made many vain efforts to get me out of the
room. After cracking his nuts and his nut-shells, and thrice cracking the
cracked--after suppressing the thick-coming yawns that at last could no
longer be suppressed, he had risen, writhed, stretched, and had fairly
taken himself out of the room. And now he just peeped in, to see if he
could tempt me forth to play.

"No, no," cried my father, "you'll not get Harrington, he is too deep here
in politics--but however, Harrington, my dear boy, 'tis not _the thing_ for
your young companion--go off and play with Mowbray: but stay, first, since