of Rupert Sinclair, there existed
one flaw to convict it of mortality, and to establish its relation with
universal error. The simplicity spoken of as characteristic of the man,
degenerated into weakness; faith in the goodness of his fellow-creatures
into glaring credulity. It is a singular fact, and one that must be
accounted for by those who have made the _Mind_ an especial study, that
whilst no man was quicker in detecting the slightest indication of his
own imperfection in another, no one could be less conscious of its
existence in himself, or less alive to imposition, the moment it was
practised under his own eye, and against his own good-nature. How many
times, during his residence in Oxford, Rupert Sinclair became the
victim of the unprincipled and the sharper, I will not venture to say,
prepared as I am to assert that no discovery of falsehood and imposture
ever convinced him of the folly of his benevolence, or of the
worthlessness of the objects upon whom his favours had been showered.
The world is said to be divided into two classes; into those who suspect
all men until they are proved honest, and those who believe all men
honest until they are proved to be false. The name of Rupert Sinclair
might be written in neither category. He not only believed the world to
be good prior to experience, but he denied it to be bad, let experience
succeed as it might in convicting it of evil.

It was exactly two years after Sinclair quitted Oxford, that I received
a letter from him, requesting me to meet him in London as soon after the
receipt of his letter as my engagements would permit. The long vacation
had again commenced. Rupert was no longer a student, or, to speak more
correctly, books had now become the solace and recreation of his leisure
hours, rather than the business of his life. To please his fond and very
foolish mother, he had accepted a commission in the Guards. The small
ambition of Lady Railton was consummated the moment her noble boy
appeared in her drawing-room "en grande tenue;" as for the peer, he was
too absorbed in his own diplomacy to interfere with that of her
ladyship, in whose knowledge of the world and sound discretion he placed
unbounded faith. I attended to the summons of Sinclair without delay.
Upon arriving in London I went to his hotel, and found him recovering
from a fit of illness which at one period had threatened his life, but
of which he had as yet kept his family in ignorance. He had be