Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/198

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190
PAUL CLIFFORD.

birth, nor debased in habit. He had associated with the Barringtons of the day: gentlemen who were admired at Ranelagh, and made speeches worthy of Cicero, when they were summoned to trial. He had played his part in public places; and, as Tomlinson was wont to say after his Ciceronian fashion, "the triumphs accomplished in the field, had been planned in the ball-room." In short, he was one of those accomplished and elegant highwaymen of whom we yet read wonders, and by whom it would have been delightful to have been robbed: and the aptness of intellect, which grew into wit with his friends, softened into sentiment with his mistress. There is something too, in beauty, (and Clifford's person, as we have before said, was possessed of even uncommon attractions) which lifts a beggar into nobility; and there was a distinction in his gait and look which supplied the air of rank, and the tone of courts. Men, indeed, skilled like Mauleverer in the subtleties of manner, might perhaps have easily detected in him the want of that indescribable essence pos-