The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 65: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

48 REYNOLDS’ WORKS Fs nae at the hands of other boys. Then he had spent a year at Cambridge, where he was tufted and toadied, and took degrees in debauchery instead of the classics; and then he drove for a few months over France and Germany in a travel- ling-chariot, emblazoned on the panels to show his rank, and . with his tutor to speak for him in the language which he himself but dimly comprehended. Having returned to iingland after this trip, he was imme- diately caught up by Lord Harold Staunton, who had just sent the last human pigeon he had plucked to the Queen’s Bench, and who therefore considered the rich young Saxon- dale a perfect godsend at that particular moment. And in this way had Lord Saxondale been qualified and was still qualifying to fill the post of an hereditary legislator, when in a year and ten months’ time the day of his majority would arrive. What advantage the councils of the nation were likely to derive from the assistance of such an individual, when he should take his seat there, we must leave our readers to determine. But very certain it was that young Lord Saxondale was, as far as intellectual accomplishments went, an average sample of his class. Being ignorant of the laws of God and nature and humanity, it was not likely he should be better acquainted with those of his country. He had learned to write, it is true, but his hand was scarcely intel- ligible, and this, by the bye, is a proof of high breeding, be- cause in fashionable life a good hand is clerkish, and it is ‘uncommonly vulgar ”’ to be able to express oneself legibly upon paper. Then as to arithmetic, he knew nothing. Who ever heard of a lord condescending to keep his own accounts? He spoke the English language correctly, because this was a mere parrot-like qualification which he could not well help attaining, but as for any other modern languages, he only had the merest smattering of French and the vaguest idea of German, the dead languages being considered the most useful at Eton and Cambridge. As for history, he only knew two things: one was that the Saxondales had taken their origin in the time of the Tudors, and the other that the English had beaten the French at Waterloo; and therefore he was proud of being both a Saxondale and an Englishman. Having thus sketched, as far as it is at present necessary, the character of Lord Saxondale, and having likewise pre- viously glanced at that of Lord Harold Staunton, we may 4 Gomicndooks