Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/76

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46
PAUL CLIFFORD.

day in knocking up a "distinguished company" at a shooting-party, and the other half in outdoing the same "distinguished company" after dinner? What if the afflicted individual himself write us word that he never was better in his life,—we have only mysteriously to shake our heads, and observe, that to contradict is not to prove,—that it is little likely that our authority should have been mistaken, and—(we are very fond of an historical comparison)—beg our readers to remember, that when Cardinal Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much as hinting that he was ill. In short, if Horace is right, we are the very princes of poets; for I dare say, Mr. Mac Grawler, that you,—and you, too, my little gentleman, perfectly remember the words of the wise old Roman,—

'Ille per externum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet.'"

Having uttered this quotation with considerable self-complacency, and thereby entirely completed his conquest over Paul, Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, turning to Mac Grawler, concluded