of
public business; and he has shown that talents for affairs of state,
connected with literary predilections, are not limited to mere reviewers,
as some of your old class-fellows would have the world to believe. When
I contrast the quiet unobtrusive development of Mr. G---'s character with
that bustling and obstreperous elbowing into notice of some of those to
whom the _Edinburgh Review_ owes half its fame, and compare the pure and
steady lustre of his elevation, to the rocket-like aberrations and
perturbed blaze of their still uncertain course, I cannot but think that
we have overrated, if not their ability, at least their wisdom in the
management of public affairs.

The third of the party was a little Yorkshire baronet. He was formerly
in Parliament, but left it, as he says, on account of its irregularities,
and the bad hours it kept. He is a Whig, I understand, in politics, and
indeed one might guess as much by looking at him; for I have always
remarked, that your Whigs have something odd and particular about them.
On making the same sort of remark to Argent, who, by the way, is a high
ministerial man, he observed, the thing was not to be wondered at,
considering that the Whigs are exceptions to the generality of mankind,
which naturally accounts for their being always in the minority. Mr.
T---, the saddler's son, who overheard us, said slyly, "That it might be
so; but if it be true that the wise are few compared to the multitude of
the foolish, things would be better managed by the minority than as they
are at present."

The fourth guest was a stock-broker, a shrewd compound, with all charity
be it spoken, of knavery and humour. He is by profession an epicure, but
I suspect his accomplishments in that capacity are not very well founded;
I would almost say, judging by the evident traces of craft and
dissimulation in his physiognomy, that they have been assumed as part of
the means of getting into good company, to drive the more earnest trade
of money-making. Argent evidently understood his true character, though
he treated him with jocular familiarity. I thought it a fine example of
the intellectual tact and superiority of T---, that he seemed to view him
with dislike and contempt. But I must not give you my reasons for so
thinking, as you set no value on my own particular philosophy; besides,
my paper tells me, that I have only room left to say, that it would be
difficult in Edinburgh to bring such a part