it must be confessed, is rather peculiar in his ideas. His grandson,
Peregrine Mowbray, who is as pert a genius as the applause of a
common-room ever yet spoiled, and as sublime an orator as the cheerings
of the Union ever yet inspired, says "the Baronet is not up to the
nineteenth century;" and perhaps this phrase will give the reader a more
significant idea of Sir Christopher Mowbray than a character as long and
as laboured as the most perfect of my Lord Clarendon's. The truth is,
the good Baronet had no idea of "liberal principles," or anything else
of that school. His most peculiar characteristic is a singular habit
which he has got of styling political economists French Smugglers.
Nobody has ever yet succeeded in extracting a reason from him for this
singular appellation, and even if you angle with the most exquisite
skill for the desired definition, Sir Christopher immediately salutes
you with a volley of oaths, and damns French wines, Bible Societies, and
Mr. Huskisson. Sir Christopher for half a century has supported in the
senate, with equal sedulousness and silence, the constitution and the
corn laws; he is perfectly aware of "the present perilous state of the
country," and watches with great interest all "the plans and plots" of
this enlightened age. The only thing which he does not exactly
comprehend is the London University. This affair really puzzles the
worthy gentleman, who could as easily fancy a county member not being a
freeholder as an university not being at Oxford or Cambridge. Indeed to
this hour the old gentleman believes that the whole business is "a
hoax;" and if you tell him that, far from the plan partaking of the
visionary nature he conceives, there are actually four acres of very
valuable land purchased near White Conduit House for the erection, and
that there is little apprehension that, in the course of a century, the
wooden poles which are now stuck about the ground will not be as fair
and flourishing as the most leafy bowers of New College Gardens, the old
gentleman looks up to heaven, as if determined not to be taken in, and