Further efforts of critical improvement: Doubts of a serious kind suggested: More politics and new acquaintance: A dissertation on rakes

The critical precepts of Turl were still tingling in my ears; and as I meant to shew the bishop some of the sermons that I had written, or in other words as many as he should be willing to read, they underwent an immediate revisal. Though in general they were less faulty than my post-haste political effort, yet I found quite enough to correct; and was so far reconciled to the benefit I had derived from Turl as to wish to meet him again.

In two or three days therefore, after having expunged, interlined, and polished one of my best performances till I was tolerably well satisfied with it, I visited him at his lodgings. I then owned to him, that I had not received the castigation he gave me quite so patiently as I ought to have done: but I had nevertheless profited by it, and was come to request more favours of the same kind; though I could not but acknowledge I had hopes that my present performance was not quite so defective as the former.

He received me kindly, but took the manuscript I offered him with what I again thought great coldness. He read two or three pages, without as before drawing his pencil upon me, and then paused. 'You have enjoined me a task,' said he, 'Mr. Trevor, which I do not know how to execute to my own satisfaction. You are not aware of the truth, and if I tell it you I shall offend.'—'Nay, Sir; I beg you will not spare me. Speak!'—'You have not explicitly defined to yourself your own motives: you think you are come in search of improvement; in reality, you are come in search of praise.'—'Not unless praise be my due.'—'Which you are convinced it is.'—'You see deeply into the human heart, Mr. Turl.'—'If I do not, I am ill qualified to criticise literary compositions.'—'And you think my divinity no better than my politics?'—'You do not state the question as I could wish. Divinity I must acknowledge is not a favourite subject with me.'—'I have heard as much.'—'I am too sincere a friend to morality to encourage dissention, quarrels, and enmity, concerning things which whoever may pretend to believe no one can prove that he understands. As a composition, from the little I have read, I believe your sermon to be very superior to your letter; but from the exposition of your subject, I perceive it treats on points of faith, asserts church authority, and stigmatises dissent with reprobation. You tell me you are recommended to a bishop: with him it will do you service! to me it is unintelligible.'

His inclination to heresy, or, which is the same thing, his difference with me in opinion, piqued me on this occasion even more than the unsparing sincerity of his remarks. I answered, I was sorry he did not agree with me, on subjects which I was convinced were so momentous; and owned it was for that reason that, while he remained at the university, I had avoided his society.

He replied, he doubted if it were right to avoid the vicious: and the precaution which he himself thought necessary, on all such occasions, was to inquire whether, in accusing another of vice, he were not himself guilty of error. He considered his own opinions as eternally open to revision; and if any man were to tell him that two and two did not make four, he should have no objection to re-examine the facts, with his opponent, on which his own previous conviction had been founded. We ought to be ardent in the defence of truth; but we ought likewise to be patient and benevolent.

I made some attempts to convince him of the impiety of his scepticism; while he remained cool, but unshaken; and I left him with mingled emotions of pity, for his adherence to doctrines so damnable; and of admiration, at the amenity and philanthropy with which they were delivered.

Thus catechised in criticism and theology, the ardour of my pursuits would perhaps have found some temporary abatement, had it not been rouzed anew. My letter had appeared, signed Themistocles, his lordship's known political cognomen. It was the first in which he had declared openly against the minister. His sentiments in consequence of this letter were become public, and many of the minority, desirous of fixing in their interest one whom they had before considered rather as their opponent than their friend, came to visit and pay him their compliments.

The resolute manner in which I had purposely and uniformly shewn him that I must be treated as his equal had produced its intended effect: I was dismissed with no haughty nod, but came and went as I pleased, and frequently bore a part in their conversation. I had still an open ear for vanity, which was not a little tickled by the frequent terms of applause and admiration with which Themistocles was quoted. His lordship did me the justice to inform his visitors that the letter was written by me. We had indeed conversed together; they were his thoughts, his principles, and it was true he had made such additions and corrections as were necessary. Then, proceeding to invectives against the minister, he there dropped me, and my share of merit.

The mortification of this was the greater because truth and falsehood were so mingled that, however inclined I might be, I knew not which way to do myself justice. But the praise, which they bestowed wholly on his lordship and which his lordship was willing to receive, I very unequivocally took to myself. It gave me animation; the pen was seldom out of my hand, and the exercise was sanative.

Mean while Enoch and his agreeable family, who knew so well when things were as they should be, were not neglected. I was careful to inform them of my rising fame; and my new friends, for so I accounted all those who paid their court to his lordship and his lordship's favourite, were individually named, characterised, and celebrated.

The family heard me with avidity, each desirous of having a share in a lord, and the friends of a lord. Enoch told me I was in high luck, mamma affirmed I was a fine writer, and Miss was sure I must be a monstrous favourite! I was a favourite with every body; and, for her part, she did not wonder at it. 'Not but it is a great pity,' added she, aside, 'that you are such a rake, Mr. Trevor.'

This repeated charge very justly alarmed my morality, and I very seriously began a refutation. But in vain. I might say what I would; she could see very plainly I was a prodigious rake, and nothing could convince her to the contrary. Though she had heard that your greatest rakes make the best husbands. Perhaps it might be true, but she did not think she could be persuaded to make the venture. She did not know what might happen, to be sure; though she really did not think she could. She could not conceive how it was, but some how or another she always found something agreeable about rakes. It was a great pity they should be rakes, but she verily believed the women loved them, and encouraged them in their seducing arts. For her part, she would keep her fingers out of the fire as long as she could: but, if it were her destiny to love a rake, what could she do? Nobody could help being in love, and it would be very hard indeed to call what one cannot help a crime.

In this key would she continue, without let or delay, whenever she had me to herself, till some accident came to my relief: for the philosophy of Miss Eliza, on the subjects of love and rakishness, was exhaustless; and though it could not always convince, it could puzzle. I often knew not how to behave, such a warfare did she sometimes kindle between inclination and morality. My resource was in silence; hers in talking. Notwithstanding her very great prudence, I suspect there might have been danger, had I not been guarded by the three fold shield of an unfashionable sense of moral right, strong aspirings after clerical purity, and the unfaded remembrance of the lovely chaste Olivia.