on, nor did I then
know of its existence--none in literature; and in politics I had
voted with the Whigs, with precisely that importance which a Whig
vote possesses in these Tory days, and with such personal
acquaintance with the leaders in both houses as the society in
which I lived sanctioned, but without claim or expectation of
anything like friendship from any one, except a few young men of my
own age and standing, and a few others more advanced in life, which
last it had been my fortune to serve in circumstances of
difficulty. This was, in fact, to stand alone: and I recollect,
some time after, Madame de Stael said to me in Switzerland, 'You
should not have warred with the world--it will not do--it is too
strong always for any individual: I myself once tried it in early
life, but it will not do.' I perfectly acquiesce in the truth of
this remark; but the world had done me the honour to begin the war;
and, assuredly, if peace is only to be obtained by courting and
paying tribute to it, I am not qualified to obtain its countenance.
I thought, in the words of Campbell,

"'Then wed thee to an exil'd lot,
And if the world hath loved thee not,
Its absence may be borne.'

"I have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings so
constituted as to be insensible to injuries; but I believe that the
best mode to avoid taking vengeance is to get out of the way of
temptation. I hope that I may never have the opportunity, for I am
not quite sure that I could resist it, having derived from my
mother something of the '_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_.' I have
not sought, and shall not seek it, and perhaps it may never come in
my path. I do not in this allude to the party, who might be right
or wrong; but to many who made her cause the pretext of their own
bitterness. She, indeed, must have long avenged me in her own
feelings, for whatever her reasons may have been (and she never
adduced them to me at least), she probably neither contemplated nor
conceived to what she became the means of conducting the father of
her child, and the husband of her choice.

"So much for 'the general voice of his countrymen:' I will now
speak of some in particular.

"In the beginning of the year 1817, an article appeared in the
Quarterly Review, w