and excite, whatever our temper of mind or cause for disgust."

"And do you," said he, "call Scott a writer of Romance? Did I so consider him, I would not read him; for Romance, whatever it may be to children, is to men mere nonsense. But Sir Walter is too natural for a Romance writer. His characters are real portraits; his descriptions, his situations, his language, his manners, his every scene and sentiment, however extraordinary, are realities they are the life itself, and as such, may be enjoyed by the driest philosopher, as well as by the warmest imagination. He is the Shakspeare. of our times; and as well might you call Shakspeare's scenes (those close pictures of nature,) romances as the works of Sir Walter. In truth, speaking for myself, I never had much imagination. I never could enter into allegories, and therefore could not relish Spenser; but as to black knights, and tourneys, and enchantments, giants, and distressed damsels, they were always to me almost insulting to the understanding. To be sure, there was a time when ghosts, or preternatural interventions, tolerably authenticated, had something like attraction. But like everything else, that too is gone, and

"E'en the last lingering fiction of the brain,
The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again.'

"In truth, Sir, as you unfortunately see, I am left in mind, as well as body, an isolated, desolate old man, without even the power of thought for my companion, or a comfort to me in my distress."

He said no more, but threw himself all his length on the sofa, and fell into a dreary silence. Barwis shortly afterwards came in, and I left him, not a little saddened, to think how much of apparently good mind had been overthrown by morbid sensibility.

Soon after, I quitted Bath.

VOL. III.

SECTION XXV.

FIELDING MEETS WITH A NABOB VERY UNLIKE
OTHER NABOBS.

"This rock and these desmesnes have been my world
Where I have lived at honest freedom."

CYMBELINE.

It is seldom that a place like Bath, though in the wane of its glory, does not bring the most heterogeneous people acquainted; much more does it frequently throw together persons who have formerly known, and perhaps liked one another, but whom the course of time and events have long separated. I ought not, therefore, to have been so surprised as I was to meet an old college friend, and almost chum (but that chums no longer existed,) in the person of Arthur Lovegrove, of whom I will say nothing, because he will speak for himself. Neither of us was very old, but he had the advantage in rubicund health, and a placidity of countenance, such as I felt I could not boast. It was ten years since we had seen one another, and our mutual

gratulations were in proportion.

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Lovegrove !"

"Fielding!" echoed from one side of the street to

the other.

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"O! qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt."

Our pleasure, however, did not prevent him from introducing me to a companion he was walking with, by the name of Freeman, a man of a grave and composed, yet cheerful and benevolent aspect, such as no person could pass by with indifference. I mention it the rather, because it led to an acquaintance that very day which added greatly to my own stock of content. In fact, Lovegrove, whom I pressed much to dine with me, to talk over old stories, having declined, on account of an engagement to Mr. Freeman at his house a few miles from Bath, that gentleman, seeing our pleasure at meeting, invited me so courteously and heartily to accompany my friend, that, according to my principle of action, I promised to comply. Mr. Freeman, from natural good breeding, presently left us alone, and I could not help immediately observing, how much I was struck with the air of dignified reflection and benevolence combined, which seemed to belong to him.

"You have hit it exactly," said Lovegrove, "for you could not have given a plainer epitome of his character, which is not a common one, I assure you."

This of course produced inquiries as to the who, and the what, upon both which Lovegrove gave me all satisfaction.

"Do not, however," said he, "raise your expectations too high; for in truth, he is the plainest and most unsophisticated of mortals, but extraordinary in this, that though he is not an inconsiderable Nabob, the acquisition of riches to which he was not born, has not been able to spoil him."

"This is what I like," replied I," and a rare character, such as a man might study; pray go on."

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Why, strange to say," observed Lovegrove, "though he has passed the best years of his life in the very hot-bed of politics and fortune-hunting, in India, he has retained all the simplicity of his earliest youth, as it existed under his father's roof, not a proud one, where we are to dine to-day."

"Good," said I; "you make me long to be

"A gentleman farmer," continued Lovegrove, "neither more nor less; and he was educated at a school within a stone's throw of his paternal house. Not a very fertile soil, you will say, for the Indian fruit he reaped, but which produced, and preserved, I imagine, those strong traits of character, which Hailybury or Addiscomb would have dissipated. At seventeen, after balancing