Opera haud fui parcus meâ. Nimis homoNihili est, qui piger est, nimisque id genus odi ego male,Vigilare decet hominem qui volt sua tempori conficere officia.CHAPTER XIX.
Opera haud fui parcus meâ. Nimis homoNihili est, qui piger est, nimisque id genus odi ego male,Vigilare decet hominem qui volt sua tempori conficere officia.
Opera haud fui parcus meâ. Nimis homoNihili est, qui piger est, nimisque id genus odi ego male,Vigilare decet hominem qui volt sua tempori conficere officia.
Opera haud fui parcus meâ. Nimis homoNihili est, qui piger est, nimisque id genus odi ego male,Vigilare decet hominem qui volt sua tempori conficere officia.
Opera haud fui parcus meâ. Nimis homo
Nihili est, qui piger est, nimisque id genus odi ego male,
Vigilare decet hominem qui volt sua tempori conficere officia.
Louis has written his own life, restrained by no very strong considerations of delicacy, nor at all abashed by the circumstantiality of what he has disclosed. His parentage, his education, his early and his late amours, the variety of his efforts to get on in the world, his obsequiousness to his superiors, and his final arrival at wealth and independence, are all communicated without the smallest reserve, as if his object, aim, principle, first and last determination, was “Quærenda Pecunia.” He does not seem much to have cared about the opinions of mankind, and to have exclaimed with Horace, “Populus me sibilet,” &c. “ad cœlum jusseris ibo.”
Our Sexagenarian, as appears from his notes, was very frequently in his society, and though he expresses himself as greatly pleased and amused withhis vivacity, his inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, his knowledge of the world, and it must be said of books also, indeed he knew something of every thing, yet he evidently felt no strong disposition to give him his esteem.
There was a man in the time of Gray, and of the same college with the Bard, whose name was Etough, or Etoph. He had been brought up among the most rigid Dissenters, but seeing better prospects before him in our Church establishment, he took orders. This man, by some means or other, had made himself acquainted with the secret history, connections, and particularities, of all the great families in the kingdom.
On account of this knowledge, though exceedingly disliked, and indeed despised, he was very much courted and invited to entertainments. Our friend Louis greatly resembled him. He was for some years resident abroad, in a situation which commanded respect, and in a place which all our young nobility, who make the tour of Europe, never fail to visit. He was necessarily introduced to their acquaintance, and thus in succession became informed of the more important circumstances involved in the history of their respective families.
This he turned to very good account, so good indeed, that his domestic expences were always on a very limited scale. The invitations he receivedto dinner, in the full season, were perpetual, and there were many considerable houses, at which a place was always left for him, without the formality of previous notice.
To the very last period of life, he retained his vivacity of intellect, and great activity of body. When turned of seventy, he played billiards with great spirit, and practised all the finesse of the Queue with considerable success.
It was whimsical enough, that never having acquired a sufficient knowledge of the English language, to read or converse in it without an offensive intermixture of his foreign idiom, he should have valuable preferment in the Church bestowed upon him. He had the good sense not to attempt any professional duties, and some ludicrous stories are told of the surprize and astonishment excited among his northern auditors, when he first appeared among them to take possession of his living.
He died rich, which indeed might be expected, for he saved much and spent little; independent of what he received from one noble family, his pension, and his living, he did not inherit less than twenty-four thousand pounds from two other personages of rank, to whom, for a continued series of years, he had paid assiduous and obsequious attention.
In his account of himself, he slurs over the circumstance of his being most affectionately received, and most generously entertained, by his relations in this country; but the fact is, on his arrival he went to the house of his uncle, who had retired from the business of a jeweller with a handsome fortune, and for many years resided in Leicester-square. When the subject of this article died, he left a niece, who had kept his house, but whether she was a daughter of this uncle above-mentioned, or not, was not known to the writer. Whoever she might be, he left her but a scanty provision.
Though frivolity and levity would better characterize him, than to call him a lover of science and philosophy, yet the book he wrote on the discoveries of the ancients, attributed to the moderns, and his edition of the works of Leibnitz, demonstrate him capable of profounder thinking, and evidently prove that he was well acquainted with books.
In the matter in which he was involved with the venerable Archbishop of Moscow, he does not stand in quite so fair a light. He committed himself unadvisedly, nor was his explanation quite perspicuous or satisfactory. Take him for all in all, he was an eccentric character, and if we do not meet with his like again, it is of no material importance.
Numerous are the anecdotes which occur in our manuscript, as communicated by this singular personage, but lest our detail should be too far extended,one only is inserted.
A society was established under the most fortunate auspices, of which, the object was, to bring together individuals, who from their relative situations in life, were otherwise less likely to meet upon equal and familiar terms: men of rank, properly so denominated, and those who had exhibited such unequivocal proofs of learning and of talent, as to claim and deserve that countenance, which the conscious dignity of superior intellect is seldom disposed to solicit. Accordingly, the first promoters of the plan endeavoured, in the invitations which they circulated, to assemble personages of distinction, who were universally considered and acknowledged as friendly to the interests of literature, and men of literary character, whose studies and productions had conciliated the general esteem.
To Louis this seemed a mighty fantastical project, and as the invitation immediately came from one, who, though much employed, and exceedingly anxious in the business, did not add much to its allurement, from the splendour of his rank, or the popularity of his name; he declined it with a sort of faint praise and civil sneer, at the same time undertaking to predict that the scheme would fall to the ground. But it turned out far otherwise. The success exceeded the most sanguine hopes of the first projectors. In a very short space oftime, the society comprehended a very large proportion of
The great, and the good, and the learned, and the wise.
The great, and the good, and the learned, and the wise.
The great, and the good, and the learned, and the wise.
The great, and the good, and the learned, and the wise.
It would not be very easy to describe the mortification and chagrin which was felt by him, who had rejected, what he would afterwards have made great sacrifices to obtain. But it was too late. The door was shut, not again to be opened to any force, within his power to apply.