ced 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 whilst "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, on 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