Whyte-MeUille s Sermon. 97 



Ava^ AvSpu)v was killed, men and women of all classes 

 said, with much feeling, '' Poor Whyte-Melville ! " and 

 probably ninety-nine out of every hundred who said so had 

 never seen him, and simply knew him by his writings — 

 which were pure, classical, and graphic — as they knew 

 Dickens or Thackeray. 



I am going " to improve the occasion," taking for my 

 text one work of Ms only, and that is " Digby Grand ; " 

 and I am going to say nothing about the author, and very 

 little about the book, beyond pointing what appears to me 

 to be the moral therein contained to the rising generation. 

 Anyone taking up that book and reading it carefully 

 through can see every rung of the ladder of the facilis 

 descensus most accurately delineated, from the moment 

 that Digby Grand, the young hero, of good family 

 and prospects, leaves Eton until he becomes a beggar. He 

 has a fair start enough in a Line regiment, commanded 

 by a sporting colonel, and falls into the hands of a 

 bad companion, Captain Levanter (who is his bad genius 

 through life, and turns out a thorough scoundrel) ; goes to 

 Canada and enjoys the wild sports harmlessly enough, and 

 eventually joins the Guards in London. He is, perhaps, a 

 little bit of a fop, but manly and simple withal ; honourable, 

 well-bred, and straightforward, and mixes with men of good 

 rank and position. There is nothing slang about him, and 

 things go on pretty fairly until he attains his majority and 

 goes to his ancestral home, where great rejoicings are held 

 in honour of the presumptive heir; on which occasion he 

 enjoys " the run of the season " (the description of which 

 makes the blood run quicker in the veins of the most non- 

 hunting man even in England), and winds up his home 

 visit with an interview with his father. Sir Peregrine Grand 

 whom he finds to be involved in great diJfficulties, and who 

 is furious at his son's wish to marry a charming girl, unfor- 



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