nough, and have been
received with a veneration mixed with awe and terror, from an old,
severe, crabbed Cato, would have wanted something of propriety in the
young Scipios, the ornament of the Roman nobility, in the flower of
their life. But the times, the morals, the masters, the scholars, have
all undergone a thorough revolution. It is a vile, illiberal school,
this new French academy of the _sans-culottes_. There is nothing in it
that is fit for a gentleman to learn.

Whatever its vogue may be, I still flatter myself that the parents of
the growing generation will be satisfied with what is to be taught to
their children in Westminster, in Eton, or in Winchester; I still
indulge the hope that no _grown_ gentleman or nobleman of our time will
think of finishing at Mr. Thelwall's lecture whatever may have been left
incomplete at the old universities of his country. I would give to Lord
Grenville and Mr. Pitt for a motto what was said of a Roman censor or
praetor (or what was he?) who in virtue of a _Senatusconsultum_ shut up
certain academies,--"_Cludere ludum impudentiae jussit_." Every honest
father of a family in the kingdom will rejoice at the breaking-up for
the holidays, and will pray that there may be a very long vacation, in
all such schools.

The awful state of the time, and not myself, or my own justification, is
my true object in what I now write, or in what I shall ever write or
say. It little signifies to the world what becomes of such things as me,
or even as the Duke of Bedford. What I say about either of us is nothing
more than a vehicle, as you, my Lord, will easily perceive, to convey my
sentiments on matters far more worthy of your attention. It is when I
stick to my apparent first subject that I ought to apologize, not when I
depart from it. I therefore must beg your Lordship's pardon for again
resuming it after this very short digression,--assuring you that I shall
never altogether lose sight of such matter as persons abler than I am
may turn to some profit.

The Duke of Bedford conceives that he is obliged to call the attention
of the House of Peers to his Majesty's grant to me, which he considers
as excessive and out of all bounds.

I know not how it has happened, but it really seems, that, whilst his
Grace was meditating his well-considered censure upon me, he fell 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-pie