with nothing that grated upon your
feelings? Some little careless idiom, or some word used in an improper
sense?" "Oh, may it please your Grace," answered I with a modest air,
"it is not for me, with my confined education and coarse taste, to aim
at making critical remarks. And tho ever so well qualified, I am
satisfied that your Grace's works would come out pure from the essay."
The successor of the apostles smiled at my answer. He made no
observation on it; but it was easy to see through all his piety that
he was an arrant author at the bottom: there is something in that dye
that not heaven itself can wash out.

[Footnote 33: From "Gil Blas."]

I seemed to have purchased the fee simple of his good graces by my
flattery. Day after day did I get a step farther in his esteem; and
Don Ferdinand, who came to see him very often, told me my footing was
so firm that there could not be a doubt but my fortune was made. Of
this my master himself gave me a proof some little time afterward; and
the occasion was as follows: One evening in his closet he rehearsed
before me, with appropriate emphasis and action, a homily which he was
to deliver the next day in the cathedral. He did not content himself
with asking me what I thought of it in the gross, but insisted on my
telling him what passages struck me most. I had the good fortune to
pick out those which were nearest to his own taste--his favorite
commonplaces. Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in his estimation
for a man who had a quick and natural relish of the real and less
obvious beauties in a work. "This indeed," exclaimed he, "is what you
may call having discernment and feeling in perfection! Well, well, my
friend! it can not be said of you,

'_Beatum in crasso jurares aere natum._'"

In a word, he was so highly pleased with me as to add in a tone of
extraordinary emotion, "Never mind, Gil Bias! henceforward take no
care about hereafter: I shall make it my business to place you among
the favored children of my bounty. You have my best wishes; and to
prove to you that you have them, I shall take you into my inmost
confidence."

These words were no sooner out of his mouth than I fell at his Grace's
feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude. I embraced his elliptical legs
with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as a man on the
high-road to a very handsome fortune. "Yes, my child," resumed the
archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by the rapidity of my