1827.] M.Gifford. 169 



attitudes generated of moving in an atmosphere of perpetual submission, 

 have even, on the most self-denying spirits, produced the feeling, that there 

 is a " Divinity that doth hedge a Fellow." Giffbrd might have soared to 

 this height of snugness and supremacy ; have been inducted into all the 

 lazy honours and local glories oiMhe full sleeved gown, and worn the cap 

 of defiance of all mankind on his erudite and angular nostril ; he might 

 have brow-beat sophisters during the week, and on Sundays rode to his 

 curacy five miles otf, and returned in exact time for Commons ; he might 

 in short, have led a haughty, easy, book-worm life, equally well fed, and 

 obscure, and gone down to the grave to slumber with the congenial 

 Doctor Drowseys of Alma Mater. Such was Oxford in the days of his 

 youth: times and things are changed since; and might be changed still 

 more without injury to the fame of that most ancient " Mother of mighty 

 men." 



But he was resolved to be of some use in his generation. A college 

 friend of his had gone to reside in the family of the late Lord Grosvenor, 

 their letters were sent under his lordship's frank. By the omission of the 

 second address, a letter of Gifford's was opened by Lord Grosvenor. 

 His lordship was struck by something in it, and inquired the circumstances 

 of the writer, and finally included him in his household as tutor of Lord 

 Belgrave, the present Earl. 



Travel, in the early days of Gifford, was like travel in the days of 

 Pythagoras. Every man was to learn for himself. If he was to 

 know what Rome held, or what was the art and mystery of foreign life, 

 nay, what were the pomps of Paris, or the frolics of Versailles, he must 

 hunt his knowledge down in person. The world had not then become 

 the world that it is ; a map spotted over with clusters of tourists and of 

 those tourists, every soul devoted to the eternal use of pen and paper. 

 Note books were things unheard of in the generation of fifty years ago. No 

 printer waited with his Press stopped, for the arrival of the postman ; and 

 no publisher lauded and magnified his own forthcoming treasure, and 

 tantalized the curiosity of newspaper mankind, by daily announcements in 

 every form of stimulation, from the simple name, to the expanded title, and 

 from the expanded title, to the Critique anticipatory. 



Yet the change, ludicrous as it is in some points, is on the whole, infinitely 

 for the better; to the traveller better: for, though one hundred or one thousand 

 may publish only to the affliction of their booksellers, yet all keep at least 

 their own eyes open while they are abroad ; objects of rational curiosity 

 exercise a rational interest ; discourses of real value in ancient learning, or 

 modern peculiarities, are the fruit of the fortunate ; and to all the very 

 act of employing their minds in the more manly and interesting recollec- 

 tions which alone they dare commit to the public, is an important and 

 improving occupation. 



With the ^ gentleman" of fifty years ago, he was of another calibre. 

 Nominally going abroad for knowledge of mankind, he came back with no 

 knowledge but of some French gamblinghouse or Italian Casino. If hewent 

 out a clown, he returned a coxcomb. If his habits at home were moderate and 

 manly, he became infected with the frivolity, the impertinence and tho 

 aristocratic pride of a Continent on which a man without a title, or a 

 frippery decoration at his button-hole, passed for nothing. PJis native 

 tongue was turned into a bastard dialect of bad French, bad Italian, and 

 bad German ; and whatever religion he might have taken with him, was 

 corrupted into the open infidelity that was then rotting the Continent to tho 

 M.M. Neiv Series VOL. III. No. 14. Z 



