l into
a sort of sleep. Homer nods, and the Duke of Bedford may dream; and as
dreams--even his golden dreams--are apt to be ill-pieced and
incongruously put together, his Grace preserved his idea of reproach
to me, but took the subject-matter from the crown-grants to his own
family. This is "the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way
of putting things together, his Grace is perfectly in the right. The
grants to the house of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage
economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the
leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his
unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty.
Huge as he is, and while "he lies floating many a rood," he is still a
creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very
spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his
origin, and covers me all over with the spray--everything of him and
about him is from the throne. Is it for _him_ to question the
dispensation of the royal favor?

I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public
merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and
these services of mine, on the favorable construction of which I have
obtained what his Grace so much disapproves. In private life, I have
not at all the honor of acquaintance with the noble Duke. But I ought
to presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he abundantly
deserves the esteem and love of all who live with him. But as to
public service, why, truly, it would not be more ridiculous for me to
compare myself in rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth,
strength, or figure, with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a
parallel between his services and my attempts to be useful to my
country. It would not be gross adulation, but uncivil irony, to say
that he has any public merit of his own, to keep alive the idea of the
services by which his vast landed pensions were obtained. My merits,
whatever they are, are original and personal; his are derivative. It
is his ancestor, the original pensioner, that has laid up this
inexhaustible fund of merit, which makes his Grace so very delicate
and exceptious about the merit of all other grantees of the crown. Had
he permitted me to remain in quiet, I should have said: "'Tis his
estate; that's enough. It is his by law; what have I to do with it or
its history?" He would naturally have said o