owledge of other countries than our own will not incapacitate me for
that part. If we see no nation but our own, we do not give mankind a
fair chance: it is from experience, not books, we ought to judge of
them. There is nothing like inspection and trusting to our senses."

But while cherishing these ideas, his mind at the same time wavered
between the two projects,--Parliament attracted him greatly. Despite his
light words, the love of true and merited glory, of the beautiful and
the good, ever inflamed his heart. What he wrote a year or two before,
to his counsellor and friend, the Rev. Mr. Beecher, had not ceased to be
his programme.[165] He said to his mother, a short time before his
majority, that he thought it indispensable, "as a preparation for the
future, to make a speech in the House, as soon as he was admitted." He
wrote the same thing still more explicitly to Harness; for he then
thought seriously of entering upon politics without delay, and his
rights as a hereditary legislator paved the way for it. Nevertheless,
being hurt, disappointed, and indignant at his guardian's conduct, and
feeling himself isolated, he not only renounced taking any active part
in the debates of his colleagues, but, according to Moore, appeared to
consider the obligation of being among them painful and mortifying.
Thus, a few days after entering Parliament, he returned disgusted to the
solitude of his abbey, there to meditate on the bitterness of precocious
experience, or upon scenes that appeared more vast to his independent
spirit, than those which his country presented.

The final decision soon came. He resolved on leaving England and taking
a long journey with his friend Hobhouse, on seeking sunshine,
experience, and forgetfulness for his wounded soul. It seemed really at
that moment as if, through an accumulation of disappointment, injustice
and grief, the result of lost illusions (he had already written the
epitaph on "Boatswain"), as if, I say, some germs of misanthropy were
beginning to appear. But his bitterness did not reach, or rather, did
not change his heart: every thing proves this. One of his friends, Lord
Faulkland, was killed in a duel about this time; and our misanthrope not
only was inconsolable, but, despite the embarrassment of his own
affairs, generously assisted the family of the deceased, who had been
left in distress. Dallas, who, through his prejudices, personal
susceptibilities, and exaggerated opinions, s