ly strain, which swells
through the essays of the graceful and tender Cicero, I have indeed felt
a momentary satisfaction at my studies, and an elation even at the
petty success with which I have cherished them. But these are brief and
fleeting moments, and deserve chastisement for their pride. There is one
thing, my Pelham, which has grieved me bitterly of late, and that
is, that in the earnest attention which it is the--perhaps
fastidious--custom of our University, to pay to the minutiae of classic
lore, I do now oftentimes lose the spirit and beauty of the general
bearing; nay, I derive a far greater pleasure from the ingenious
amendment of a perverted text, than from all the turn and thought of the
sense itself: while I am straightening a crooked nail in the wine-cask,
I suffer the wine to evaporate; but to this I am somewhat reconciled,
when I reflect that it was also the misfortune of the great Porson, and
the elaborate Parr, men with whom I blush to find myself included in the
same sentence."

"My friend," said I, "I wish neither to wound your modesty, nor to
impugn your pursuits; but think you not that it would be better, both
for men and for yourself, that, while you are yet in the vigour of your
age and reason, you occupy your ingenuity and application in some more
useful and lofty work, than that which you suffered me to glance at in
your library; and moreover, as the great object of him who would perfect
his mind, is first to strengthen the faculties of his body, would it
not be prudent in you to lessen for a time your devotion to books; to
exercise yourself in the fresh air--to relax the bow, by loosing the
string; to mix more with the living, and impart to men in conversation,
as well as in writing, whatever the incessant labour of many years
may have hoarded? Come, if not to town, at least to its vicinity; the
profits of your living, if even tolerably managed, will enable you to
do so without inconvenience. Leave your books to their shelves, and your
flock to their curate, and--you shake your head--do I displease you?"

"No, no, my kind and generous adviser--but as the twig was set, the tree
must grow. I have not been without that ambition which, however vain and
sinful, is the first passion to enter the wayward and tossing vessel of
our soul, and the last to leave its stranded and shattered wreck; but
mine found and attained its object at an age, when in others it is, as
yet, a vague and unsettled feeli