ween those Cumberland walks
with Sir George and my ramblings over the same or nearly the same
ground with the meditative Swedenborgian doctor;--the first always
pushing ahead as if shouldering along a victorious path through life,
knowing the history of every foot of ground he passed over, interested
in every detail of it, and with an air of continually saying "Ha!
ha!" among the breezy trumpets of those hills, like the scriptural
war-horse; the second with his gaze very imperfectly turned
outward, but very fruitfully turned inward, frequently pausing with
argumentative finger laid on his companion's breast, and smile half
satirical half kindly as the flow of discourse revealed theological
_lacunae_ in my acquirements, which, I fear, irreparably and most
unfairly injured the Regius professor of divinity in the mind of the
German graduate. For Nicholson was a theological "doctor" by virtue of
a degree from I forget what German university, and had a low estimate,
perhaps more justified at that day than it would be now, of the extent
and calibre of Oxford theological learning. He was himself a disciple,
and an enthusiastic admirer of Ewald, a very learned Hebraist, and an
unflagging student.

I was more capable of appreciating at its due value the extent and
accuracy of his knowledge upon another subject--a leg of mutton! It
_may_ be a mere coincidence, but certainly the most learned Hebraist
it was ever my lot to know was also the best and most satisfactory
carver of a leg of mutton.

Nobody knows anything about mutton in these days, for the very
sufficient reason that there is no mutton worth knowing anything about.
Scientific breeding has improved it off the face of the earth. The
immature meat is killed at two years old, and only we few survivors of a
former generation know how little like it is to the mutton of former
days. The Monmouthshire farmers told me the other day that they could
not keep Welsh sheep of pure breed, because nothing under an eight-foot
park paling would confine them. Just as if they did not jump in the days
when I jumped too! Believe me, my young friends, that George the Third
knew what he was talking about (as upon certain other occasions) when he
said that very little venison was equal to a haunch of four-year-old
mutton. And the gravy!--chocolate-coloured, not pink, my innocent young
friends. Ichabod! Ichabod!

My uncle, too, Mr. Partington--who married my father's sister, and
lived many y