as hateful as ever to my pursuits: but I come, frankly and candidly, to
throw myself on that generosity, which proffered to me then so large
a bounty. Certain circumstances have taken from me the small pittance
which supplied my wants;--I require only the power to pursue my quiet
and obscure career of study--your Lordship can afford me that power: it
is not against custom for the Government to grant some small annuity
to men of letters--your Lordship's interest could obtain for me this
favour. Let me add, however, that I can offer nothing in return! Party
politics--Sectarian interests--are for ever dead to me: even my common
studies are of small general utility to mankind--I am conscious of
this--would it were otherwise!--Once I hoped it would be--but--" Aram
here turned deadly pale, gasped for breath, mastered his emotion, and
proceeded--"I have no great claim, then, to this bounty, beyond that
which all poor cultivators of the abstruse sciences can advance. It is
well for a country that those sciences should be cultivated; they are
not of a nature which is ever lucrative to the possessor--not of a
nature that can often be left, like lighter literature, to the fair
favour of the public--they call, perhaps, more than any species of
intellectual culture, for the protection of a government; and though in
me would be a poor selection, the principle would still be served, and
the example furnish precedent for nobler instances hereafter. I have
said all, my Lord!"

Nothing, perhaps, more affects a man of some sympathy with those who
cultivate letters, than the pecuniary claims of one who can advance them
with justice, and who advances them also with dignity. If the meanest,
the most pitiable, the most heart-sickening object in the world, is the
man of letters, sunk into the habitual beggar, practising the tricks,
incurring the rebuke, glorying in the shame, of the mingled mendicant
and swindler;--what, on the other hand, so touches, so subdues us, as
the first, and only petition, of one whose intellect dignifies our whole
kind; and who prefers it with a certain haughtiness in his very modesty;
because, in asking a favour to himself, he may be only asking the power
to enlighten the world?

"Say no more, Sir," said the Earl, affected deeply, and giving
gracefully way to the feeling; "the affair is settled. Consider it
utterly so. Name only the amount of the annuity you desire."

With some hesitation Aram named a sum so moder