"If you would know of the ignorance, the folly, and the vice of the rich," proceeded the baron, always at home upon this his favourite subject, "you must listen to an endless tale. Ever willing and eager to detract from the merits of the man of science, and to attribute to him the assumption of powers beyond human grasp--and ever striving to drag down the results of his long and patient study to the level of their own brutish ignorance--they are made the sport, the tools, and playthings of every charlatan and trickster, as they should be. You shall be satisfied, Mr Walpole, when you see the men who treat you with scorn and contumely, pulled like puppets by a wire, and made to dance to any tune the piper listeth. Hope nothing from the rich." "And from the poor, sir?" "Every thing," said the baron, almost solemnly. "From their hearts shall spring the gratitude that will cheer you in your course, and solace you in your gloom. Fame, and the grateful attachment of my humble friends, have furnished me with a victory which the gold of the king could not purchase. But we forget Saint Sulpice. I am not a hypocrite, as you judge me, Mr Walpole. Be witness yourself if my presence there this day has proved me one. Refused and cast away by this nobleman, I had nothing to do but to dispose for a trifle of a few articles of linen which were still in my possession. I sold them for a song, and believing failure to be impossible, still struggled on. In that room I dwelt, living for days upon nothing richer than bread and water, and regarding my little money with the agony of a miser, as every demand diminished the small store. From morn till night I laboured. I almost passed my life amongst the dead. Well was it for me, as it proved, that my necessities drove me to the dead-house to forget hunger, and obtain eleemosynary warmth. Dismissed at dusk from this temporary home, I returned to the garret for my crust, and carried the book which I had borrowed to the common passage of the house, from whose dim lamp I received the glimmer that served me to read, and to sustain the incensed ambitious spirit that would not quell within me. The days glanced by quicker than the lightning. I could not read enough; I could not acquire knowledge sufficient, in that brief interval of days, between the acquisition of my little wealth and the spending of my last farthing. The miserable moment came. I was literally penniless, and without the means of realizing any thing. For a week I retained possession of my room through the charity of my landlord, and I was furnished with two loaves by a good fellow who lived in the same house, and who proffered his assistance so kindly, so generously, and well, that I received his benefaction only that I might not give him pain by a refusal. The second week of charity had already begun, when, entering my cold and hapless room in my return from the hospital, I was detained at the door by hearing my name pronounced in a loud and angry tone.