ed, upstart, irritating fool. He considered
himself the shrewdest of mortals, and presumed to dictate, to be
impertinent, to carry matters with a high hand and a flourish. As for
modesty, the word was not in his dictionary. He had never known its
meaning; and therefore, perhaps, in justice is not to be blamed for the
want of it. Augustus, being a great blusterer, was of course a low
coward. He bullied, oppressed, and crushed the helpless and the weak,
who were avenged as often as he cowered and sneaked beneath the look of
the strong and the brave. The companions and friends of such creatures
as Brammel, are generally selected from the lower grades of life. The
tone of feeling found amongst the worst members of these classes,
harmonizes with their own. They think the like thoughts, talk the same
language. They are led to them by the true Satanic impulse, for it is
their triumph to reign in hell--their misery to serve in heaven.
Flattered by the dregs and refuse of society, they endeavour to forget
that they are avoided, spurned, trodden on, by any thing higher. Just
when it was too late to profit by the discovery, old Brammel found out
his mistake; and then he sagaciously vowed, that if his time were to
come over again, he would educate his boy in a very different manner.
His first attempt had certainly been a failure. Augustus had been
rusticated at the university; he had run away from his home; he had
committed all kinds of enormity. He had passed weeks in the sinks of
London, and had been discovered at last by his heartbroken parent
amongst the stews of Shadwell, in a fearful state of disease and
destitution. Years were passed in proceedings of this nature, and every
attempt at recovery proved abortive and useless. His debts had been
discharged a dozen times, and on every occasion under a solemn
engagement that it should be the last. When Brammel senior signed the
deed of partnership on behalf of his son, the latter, as I have already
said, was in Oxford, having returned to the university only a month
before, at the termination of his period of banishment. Whilst the
father was engaged in publishing the imaginary virtues of his son to
most admiring listeners, the promising youth himself was passing his
days in the very agreeable society of Miss Mary Anne Waters, the eldest
daughter of the cook of his college--a young lady with some pretension
to beauty, but none whatever to morality, being neither more nor less
than Mr