of yours?"--"Very likely, my lord!" replied my uncle; "the blackberry is the fruit of the bramble: but I believe the bishop is not a berry of our bush."--"No more he is, no more he is, ha, ha, ha!" exclaimed the duke; "there you give me a scratch, good Mr. Bramble, ha, ha, ha! Well, I shall be glad to see you at Lincoln's Inn Fields. You know the way; times are altered. Though I have lost the power, I retain the inclination; your very humble servant, good Mr. Blackberry." So saying, he shoved to another corner of the room. "What a fine old gentleman!" cried Mr. Barton, "what spirits! what a memory! he never forgets an old friend."--"He does me too much honour to rank me among the number. Whilst I sat in parliament I never voted with the ministry but three times, when my conscience told me they were in the right: however, if he still keeps levee, I will carry my nephew thither, that he may see, and learn to avoid the scene; for I think an English gentleman never appears to such disadvantage as at the levee of a minister. Of his grace I shall say nothing at present, but that for thirty years he was the constant and common butt of ridicule and execration. He was generally laughed at as an ape in politics, whose office and influence served only to render his folly the more notorious; and the opposition cursed him as the indefatigable drudge of a first mover, who was justly styled and stigmatized as the father of corruption: but this ridiculous ape, this venal drudge, no sooner lost the places he was so ill qualified to fill, and unfurled the banners of faction, than he was metamorphosed into a pattern of public virtue; the very people, who reviled him before, now extolled him to the skies, as a wise experienced statesman, chief pillar of the protestant succession, and corner-stone of English liberty...."