n his side: "'Tis this
man's fortune. He is as good now as my ancestor was two hundred and
fifty years ago. I am a young man with very old pensions: he is an old
man with very young pensions--that's all."

Why will his Grace, by attacking me, force me reluctantly to compare
my little merit with that which obtained from the crown those
prodigies of profuse donation by which he tramples on the mediocrity
of humble and laborious individuals?... Since the new grantees have
war made on them by the old, and that the word of the sovereign is not
to be taken, let us turn our eyes to history, in which great men have
always a pleasure in contemplating the heroic origin of their house.

The first peer of the name, the first purchaser of the grants, was a
Mr. Russell, a person of an ancient gentleman's family, raised by
being a minion of Henry VIII. As there generally is some resemblance
of character to create these relations, the favorite was in all
likelihood much such another as his master. The first of those
immoderate grants was not taken from the ancient demesne of the crown,
but from the recent confiscation of the ancient nobility of the land.
The lion having sucked the blood of his prey, threw the offal carcass
to the jackal in waiting. Having tasted once the food of confiscation,
the favorites became fierce and ravenous. This worthy favorite's first
grant was from the lay nobility. The second, infinitely improving on
the enormity of the first, was from the plunder of the church. In
truth, his Grace is somewhat excusable for his dislike to a grant like
mine, not only in its quantity, but in its kind, so different from his
own.

Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign; his, from Henry VIII.
Mine had not its fund in the murder of any innocent person of
illustrious rank, or in the pillage of any body of unoffending men;
his grants were from the aggregate and consolidated funds of judgments
iniquitously legal, and from possessions voluntarily surrendered by
the lawful proprietors with the gibbet at their door.

The merit of the grantee whom he derives from was that of being a
prompt and greedy instrument of a leveling tyrant, who opprest all
descriptions of his people, but who fell with particular fury on
everything that was great and noble. Mine has been in endeavoring to
screen every man, in every class, from oppression, and particularly in
defending the high and eminent, who in the bad times of confiscating
prince