ABSTRACT
The next day our hero hastened to Lord Belfield, and as he passed through the streets, closed his ear and his eye as well as he could, to the suggestions of fancy, dreading the perplexities of the preceding day. As he proceeded, all the ideas of nobility, which his father had so frequently inculcated, rose with a glowing sensation. Lord Belfield was one of the ancient peers who sat in the house by descent, and not by creation. His blood was enriched with some sprinklings from the royal veins of France and of England, and the imagination of Charles was awed by the departed predecessors of / Belfield, who rose, in a marshalled order, before his timid and modest nature. Had my Lord Belfield (he thought) been a commoner! ‘I have seen commoners. An obscure being like myself, admitted to the society of a man of such a noble descent, if received haughtily must feel a self-degradation, and if received with kindness must still recollect that the equality he enjoys is a conferred favour, and not a mutual obligation. How I should hate to be one, who is only suffered to be what he is! Yet is nobility a golden chain of ornament and utility in our government; a softening shade of monarchy that relieves the bright picture of our constitution: a nobleman carries with him a weight of glory, or a weight of shame; if he rivals his virtuous ancestors, who more deserves our veneration? And if he withers all his leaves of honour, the noble stem from which he sprung will exist as / the peculiar memorial of his degeneracy. The nobleman is entitled to a respect not due to a private citizen, whose obscurity conceals his defects; for this respect is either paid to him for himself, which will be his glory, or it is paid to the memory of his ancestors, which will be his infamy. It is only by this order of men, that a nation can secure to itself a race of illustrious characters. Uninfluenced by the confined interests of other individuals, what does a noble claim for the remuneration of actions, for which others are recompensed by new honours, or meaner gratifications? Of these he wants neither; the remembrance of his ancestors, and the proud rivalry of his own conduct, are the priceless remunerations his great soul can alone receive. Lord Belfield, the descendant of so many illustrious progenitors; what a stimulating source of noble actions!’ – So, repeating the first lines of 23the / first Ode of Horace, 64 and philosophizing in this manner, Charles at length arrived at the house of his noble patron.
