return to the select society of their native town with
an impression, that though Oxford was a very fine place, and they had
real champagne, and wax candles, and every thing quite genteel, and dear
Richard was very kind, still they did think he was grown rather proud,
as he never once asked after his old acquaintances the Smiths, and
didn't like to be teased about his old flame Mary. No wonder that in the
visits, few and far between, which, during the long vacation, the
pompous B.D. pays to his humble relations in the country, (when he has
exhausted the invitations and the patience of his more aristocratic
friends,) they do not find a trace remaining of the vulgar boy, who,
some twelve years ago, quitted the seat of the provincial muses to push
his fortunes in the University of Oxford. In vain does his uncle give up
his after-dinner pipe, and in place of the accustomed Hollands and
water, astonish the dusty decanter with port of an unknown vintage in
honour of his illustrious nephew; in vain does the good old lady
afore-mentioned, the unworthy mother of so bright a son, quit the
instruction of pious Mr Jabez Jenkins, the "Independent" minister, and
turn orthodox and high-church for the nonce, when her dearly beloved
Richard "officiates" for the rev. the vicar; no ties of home or kindred,
no memories of boyhood, no glow of early recollections, touch the
case-hardened parasite of college growth; and when he has banished his
younger brother to Australia, under pretext of making his fortune,
married both his sisters, and erected a cheap monument to the
linen-draper's widow as the "relict of the late Thomas Thompson,
_Esquire_," he waits in peaceful expectation of a college living, with
the consciousness of having done his duty by his relations, and
delivered himself from a drag upon his new career. I do not mean to set
too high a value on gentle birth, or to limit nobility of character by
that of blood; I believe my tailor to be one of nature's gentlemen, (he
never duns,) and I know my next neighbour, Sir John, thirteenth baronet
as he is, to possess the soul of a huckster, because he sells his fruit
and game: still these are the exceptions, not the rule; and there are
few cases of men rising from low origin--rising, that is, from
circumstances, not from ability--not the architects, but the creations
of their own fortunes, (for that makes all the difference)--who do not
carry with them, through all the gradations of their adv