The right reverend father in God began, and with him very unexpectedly began my dissatisfaction. His voice was thick, his delivery spiritless, and his candences ridiculous. His soul was so overlaid with brawn and dignity that, though it heaved, panted, and struggled, it could never once get vent. Speaking through his apoplectic organs, I could not understand myself: it was a mumbling hubbub, the drone of a bagpipe, and the tantalizing strum strum of a hurdy-gurdy! Never was hearer more impatient to have it begin; never was hearer better pleased to have it over! Every sentence did but increase the fever of my mind. Enoch himself perceived it, though he could not discover the cause. The orator indeed produced no emotion in him, but that was not wonderful. The effect was quite as good as he expected! He had never, I believe, been entertained at a sermon in his life; not even at his own. He went to hear sermons sometimes, because it was decorous, because he was a parson, and because it was his trade to preach them; but never with any intention to enlarge his mind or improve his morals. His lordship however had no sooner descended than he was encircled by as many flatterers as thought they had any right to approach; among whom, to my shame be it spoken, I was one. I did not indeed applaud either his discourse or his delivery; I was not quite so depraved, nor so wholly forgetful of the feelings he had excited! but I laboured out an aukward panegyric on the important duties he had to fulfil, and on the blessing it was to a nation, when worthy persons were chosen to fill such high offices. Thus endeavouring to quiet my conscience by a quibble, and with a half faced lie make him believe what it was impossible I could mean. The discourse too was praised abundantly. It was divine! His lordship had never delivered more serious and alarming truths! But though no man could be better convinced that in reality this was all fact, yet coming from them I knew it to be all falsehood. They could not characterize what they could not hear; and the maukish adulation curdled even upon my digestive stomach. The lesson however certainly did me good, though it had yet but little influence upon my conduct. CHAPTER X _The critic once more consulted in vain: The Bishop less fastidious: The playhouse: Elbows and knees or virtue in danger: Mrs. Jordan_ It was possible I found, under the rose be it spoken, even for a bishop to be a blockhead: but, if that bishop had sense enough to discern my good qualities, I ought not to be the most unrelenting of his censurers. My defence of the articles would indeed do its own business: yet to come forth under episcopal auspices was an advantage by which it was perhaps my duty to profit. Politics necessarily had their interval; but, though this created delay, my manuscript was at length finished, fairly recopied, and impatient to be applauded.