Waverleys
constituted almost all our lighter reading, the tone of society was not
higher, the spirit more heroic, the current of thought and expression
purer, than in these realistic days, when we turn for amusement to
descriptions of every quaint vulgarity that makes up the life of the
boarding-house or the strolling theatre.

The glorious heroism of Scott's novels was a fine stream to turn
into the turbid river of our worldliness and money-seeking. It was
of incalculable benefit to give men even a passing glance of noble
devotion, high-hearted courage, and unsullied purity.

I can remember the time when, as freshmen in our first year, we went
about talking to each other of 'Ivanhoe' and 'Kenilworth;' and I can
remember, too, when the glorious spirit of those novels had so possessed
us, that our romance elevated and warmed us to an unconscious imitation
of the noble thoughts and deeds we had been reading.

Smile if you like at our boyish enthusiasm, it was better than the
mocking spirit engendered by all this realism, or the insensate craving
after stimulus taught by sensation novels.

Now, I am not old enough to remember the great talkers of the time when
George III. was King, or those who made Carlton House famous; but I
belonged to a generation where these men were remembered, and where it
was common enough to hear stories of their Attic nights, those _noctes
caenaeque deorum_ which really in brilliancy must have far transcended
anything that Europe could boast of conversational power. The youth
of the time I speak of were full of these traditions. "If I am not the
rose, I grew near one," was no foolish boast; and certainly there was
both in the tone of conversation and the temper of society a sentiment
that showed how the great men had influenced their age, and how, even
after their sun had gone down, a warm tint remained to remind the world
of the glorious splendour that had departed.

Being an Irishman, it is to Ireland I must go for my illustration, and
it is my pride to remember that I have seen some of those who were,
in an age of no common convivial excellence, amongst the first and the
greatest. They are gone, and I may speak of them by name--Lord
Plunkett, the Chief-Justice Bushe, Mr Casey, Sir Philip Crampton, Barre
Beresford--I need not go on. I have but to recall the leading men at the
bar, to make up a list of the most brilliant talkers that ever delighted
society. Nor was the soil exhausted with