beginning, his high opinion and awe of the clerical
character kept him remarkably dull and sheepish. Many an excellent joke
was cracked at his expense; and often did he ask himself what Phadrick
Murray, his father's family, or his acquaintances in general, would
say, if they saw his learning and his logic so villanously degraded.
In proportion, however, as conviviality developed among his reverend
friends many defects, opinions, and failings, which he never suspected
them to possess, so did he begin to gather courage and facility of
expression. By degrees he proceeded modestly from the mild and timid
effort at wit to the steadier nerve of moderate confidence--another step
brought him to the indifference of a man who can bear an unsuccessful
attempt at pleasantry, without being discomposed; the third and last
stage advanced him to downright assurance, which having reached, he
stopped at nothing. From this forward he began to retort upon his
clerical companions, who found that the sheepish youth whom they had
often made ridiculous, possessed skill, when properly excited, to foil
them at their own weapons. He observed many things in their convivial
meetings. The holy man, whom his flock looked upon as a being of the
highest sanctity, when lit up into fun and frolic, Denis learned to
estimate at his just value. He thought, besides, that a person resolved
to go to heaven, had as good a chance of being saved by the direct
mercy of God, as through the ministration of men, whose only spiritual
advantage over himself consisted in the mere fact of being in orders.
To be sure, he saw the usual exceptions among them that are to be found
among every other class; but he drew his conclusions from the general
rule. All this, however, failed in removing that fundamental principle
of honest superstition in which he had been trained. The clergymen whom
he saw were only a few who constituted the great body of the church; but
when the long and sanctified calendar of saints and miracles opened
upon him, there still remained enough to throw a dim and solemn charm of
shadowy pomp around the visions of a mind naturally imaginative.

Messengers were once more sent abroad, to inform their friends of his
triumph, who, on ascertaining that his journey was fixed for an early
day, lost no time in pouring in, each with some gift suited to
their circumstances. Some of these were certainly original, the
appropriateness having been in every case determine