ART OF TOAD-EATING. 195 



down on common-place fellow commoners and lords. My ambition 

 was to persuade myself, but as I could not do that, I persuaded the 

 world, that my intimacy with the peer's son was all owing to my ex- 

 traordinary merit, my prodigious talents. I was wilty, very witty, 

 but I took care to manage my wit in such a manner that it might not 

 appear that I was patronized merely for the sake of my table humour. 

 I was too proud to be a buffoon, or as I tersely expressed it, to be a 

 lord's fool without a salary. My object was to appear always per- 

 fectly on a level with, and perfectly at ease with all ; that is, with all 

 above me with whom I had any acquaintance. I did not become a 

 toad-eater for nothing I would gratify my pride as well as my ap- 

 petite by it. 



This of course required considerable management, and none but a 

 person of my talents could do it properly. Here lies the great 

 difference between a confidential valet an.d a toad-eater. The confi- 

 dential valet is perfectly at his ease with his master in private tells 

 him scandalous stories laughs and jokes with him as freely as with 

 the butler in the housekeeper's-room ; but before third persons, or 

 strangers, is all humility and courtesy, diffidence, and subserviency, 

 as if he thought it too great an honour to breathe the same air ; but 

 the gentleman toad-eater who sits at my lord's own table, and walks 

 arm in arm with my lord in public, and talks familiarly with my lord 

 before strangers, to the great marvel of all common people, free as he 

 may be in the sight of the world, is quite another thing in private 

 is all subserviency and humility. Your proper toad-eater, who 

 knows his business well, flatters circuitously, not directly. I will 

 conclude by giving a specimen : a well-meaning simple sort of man, 

 whohadaknackatversification,dedicatedabookto mylord, and mylord 

 condescendingly noticed the dedicating poet. I also patronized the 

 poet, but as I never thought well of any one's writing but my own, 

 my praise, of course, was all fudge. The poet swallowed it, gulped 

 it, grew fat upon it. So long as my lord chose to patronize him, it 

 was all well, but he waxed fat and kicked. He might have kicked 

 me till his hoofs wore out for any thing that I cared, but he kicked 

 my lord, and my lord cut him and then I cut him and kicked him 

 too, over and over again ; and I found ten thousand faults where be- 

 fore I had found ten thousand beauties. 



AMABILIS INSANIA. 



Pauperi amare nefas, et idem per inutile, dictum hoc 



In libro posuit Malthus amabilitur 

 Olim dictus amor, jam irisania amabilis audit 



Vivere sat miseris, nubere divitibus. 



ENGLISH VERSION. 



Good Malthus hurls his veto 'gainst the poor man's marriage-bed 

 Enough if lie be let to live the rich alone may wed. 



