208 MY APPRENTICESHIP. 



gious. He was profoundly skilled in the art of flattery ; persuasive 

 capable of cajoling; yet open to flattery himself ever liable to be 

 cajoled and converted to the purposes of others, even by men immea- 

 surably his inferiors in knowledge and in intellect. 



" Temperate in drinking, he was the reverse in every other grati- 

 fication of sense. His perceptions were nice ; his conduct was gross. 

 Ardent as a lover, he was inconstant as he was ardent : sensual heart- 

 less profligate." 



" Had Mirabeau been virtuous, he would have been great ; as he was 

 vicious, he was only wonderful/' 



The translator of these letters has executed his task very ably, and 

 Very spiritedly. In one or two unimportant instances, he seems to have 

 misunderstood the turn of a metaphysical phrase ; a failure at which, 

 bearing in mind Mirabeau's application of an expression of Scaliger's on 

 the Basque people to metaphysicians, we are not surprised : " It is 

 asserted that they understand one another, but I do not believe it !" 



A crowning merit of these volumes is the capital whole-length por- 

 trait of Mirabeau prefixed, with these powerful and pungent words 

 beneath : 



" J'ai ete, je suis, je serai jusqu'au tombeau I'homme de la liberte pub- 

 lique, I'homme de la constitution. Malheur aux ordres priviligies ! Ik 

 Jiniront, mais le peuple est eternel." 



MY APPRENTICESHIP. 



MY father was what is called an eminent attorney ; for I believe that 

 is the highest title to which the gentlemen who practise this branch of 

 jurisprudence can arrive, since we never hear of an illustrious or a dis- 

 tinguished attorney. However, if not distinguished in one way, my 

 father was so in another ; for he had seven daughters, and I was the 

 eighth son, or fifteenth child. When I was about sixteen years of age, 

 and half educated, with little Latin and less Greek, my father said it 

 was high time that I should do something to obtain a living ; and 

 accordingly he prevailed on his friend Mr. Grubbins, a medical prac- 

 titioner, likewise eminent, in a neighbouring village on the banks of the 

 Severn, to take me as his lawful and dutiful apprentice, to learn the art 

 and craft of an apothecary, for the term of seven long years. I ought rather 

 to say, the art ; for the craft could hardly be acquired in a life-time. I 

 need not relate the extent of my suffering during this period ; for the 

 fee my father paid being less than that generally given, I had to pay in 

 person, and to perform pretty nearly the work of two apprentices. I 

 will not tell the number of paupers I poisoned, before I learnt the art of 

 compounding medicine. I will not say a word of mangling arms before 

 I acquired the art of phlebotomy ; neither will I confess to the number 

 of teeth I drew by mistake, before an extensive practice taught me the 

 art of fixing the instrument. These all belong to the secret of my pro- 

 fession, and must on no account be divulged. How I made love to my 

 master's neice, when on a visit, and nearly got kicked out of the house, 

 is not so much of a mystery ; but how I repaid the relation would tire 

 my friends; therefore I shall pass on to the grand feature of that perilous 

 servitude my apprenticeship. 



