The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1837Various
History
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1837
Various
Periodicals
"It will give you pleasure to learn that, notwithstanding
some little rubs, I have been able to carry through the
transaction which your lordship sanctioned by your influence
and approbation, and that in a way very pleasing to my own
feelings. Lord Spencer, upon the nature of the transaction
being explained in an audience with which he favored me, was
pleased to direct the commission to be issued, as an act
of justice, regretting, he said, it had not been from the
beginning his own deed. This was doing the thing handsomely,
and like an English nobleman. I have been very much fêted and
caressed here, almost indeed to suffocation, but have been made
amends by meeting some old friends. One of the kindest was Lord
Somerville, who volunteered introducing me to Lord Spencer,
as much, I am convinced, from respect to your lordship's
protection and wishes, as from a desire to serve me personally.
He seemed very anxious to do any thing in his power which might
evince a wish to be of use to your protegé. Lord Minto was also
infinitely kind and active, and his influence with Lord Spencer
would, I am convinced, have been stretched to the utmost in
my favor, had not Lord Spencer's own view of the subject been
perfectly sufficient.
"After all, a little literary reputation is of some use here.
I suppose Solomon, when he compared a good name to a pot of
ointment, meant that it oiled the hinges of the hall-doors into
which the possessors of that inestimable treasure wished to
penetrate. What a _good_ name was in Jerusalem, a _known_ name
seems to be in London. If you are celebrated for writing verses
or for slicing cucumbers, for being two feet taller or two feet
less than any other biped, for acting plays when you should be
whipped at school, or for attending schools and institutions
when you should be preparing for your grave, your notoriety
becomes a talisman--'an Open Sesame' before which every thing
gives way--till you are voted a bore, and discarded for a new
plaything. As this is a consummation of notoriety which I am by
no means ambitious of experiencing, I hope I shall be very soon
able to shape my course northward, to enjoy my good fortune at
my leisure."
Elsewhere, a friend thus describes his bearing, in the presence of
his London entertainers:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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