e had no one to exchange ideas
with. The "unbought grace of life," the charm of literary conversation
was gone. It was the habit of his mind, his ruling passion to enter into
the shock and conflict of opinions on philosophical, political, and
critical questions--not to dictate to raw tyros or domineer over persons
in subordinate situations--but to obtain the guerdon and the laurels of
superior sense and information by meeting with men of equal standing, to
have a fair field pitched, to argue, to distinguish, to reply, to
hunt down the game of intellect with eagerness and skill, to push an
advantage, to cover a retreat, to give and take a fall--

"And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach."

It is no wonder that this sort of friendly intellectual gladiatorship is
Sir James's greatest pleasure, for it is his peculiar _forte_. He has
not many equals, and scarcely any superior in it. He is too indolent for
an author; too unimpassioned for an orator: but in society he is just
vain enough to be pleased with immediate attention, good-humoured
enough to listen with patience to others, with great coolness and
self-possession, fluent, communicative, and with a manner equally free
from violence and insipidity. Few subjects can be started, on which he
is not qualified to appear to advantage as the gentleman and scholar. If
there is some tinge of pedantry, it is carried off by great affability
of address and variety of amusing and interesting topics. There is
scarce an author that he has not read; a period of history that he is
not conversant with; a celebrated name of which he has not a number of
anecdotes to relate; an intricate question that he is not prepared
to enter upon in a popular or scientific manner. If an opinion in an
abstruse metaphysical author is referred to, he is probably able to
repeat the passage by heart, can tell the side of the page on which it
is to be met with, can trace it back through various descents to Locke,
Hobbes, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, to a place in some obscure folio of
the School-men or a note in one of the commentators on Aristotle or
Plato, and thus give you in a few moments' space, and without any effort
or previous notice, a chronological table of the progress of the human
mind in that particular branch of inquiry. There is something, we think,
perfectly admirable and delightful in an exhibition of this kind, and
which is equally creditable to the speaker and gratifying to the hearer.
B