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Book, page 111 / 484 all sides exclamations were heard in favour of _friends in power_. "True--very true, indeed. And see what it is," said Commissioner Falconer, turning to Buckhurst, "see what it is to have a son so perverse, that he will not make use of a good friend when he has one, and who will not accept the promise of an excellent living when he can get it!" All his friends and acquaintance now joining in one chorus told Buckhurst, in courtly terms, that he was a fool, and Buckhurst began to think they must be right.--"For here," said he to himself, "are my two precious brothers finely provided for, one an envoy, the other a major _in esse_, and a lieutenant-colonel _in posse_--and I, _in esse_ and _in posse_, what?--Nothing but a good fellow--one day with the four in hand club, the next in my chambers, studying the law, by which I shall never make a penny. And there's Miss Caroline Percy, who has declined the honour of my hand, no doubt, merely because I have indulged a little in good company, instead of immuring myself with Coke and Blackstone, Viner and Saunders, Bosanquet and Puller, or chaining myself to a special-pleader's desk, like cousin Alfred, that galley-slave of the law!--No, no, I'll not make a galley-slave of myself. Besides, at my mother's, in all that set, and in the higher circles with Hauton and the Clays, and those people, whenever I appear in the character of a poor barrister, I am scouted--should never have _got on_ at all, but for my being a wit--a wit!--and have not I wit enough to make my fortune? As my father says, What hinders me?--My conscience only. And why should my conscience be so cursedly delicate, so unlike other men's consciences?" In this humour, Buckhurst was easily persuaded by his father to take orders. The paralytic incumbent of Chipping-Friars had just at this time another stroke of the palsy, on which Colonel Hauton congratulated the young deacon; and, to keep him in patience while waiting for the third stroke, made him chaplain to his regiment.--The Clays also introduced him to their uncle, Bishop Clay, who had, as they told him, taken a prodigious fancy to him; for he observed, that in carving a partridge, Buckhurst never touched the wing with a knife, but after nicking the joint, tore it off, so as to leave adhering to the bone that muscle obnoxious to all good eaters.--The bishop pronounced him to be "a capital carver." Fortune at this time threw into Buckhurst's hands unasked, unlooked-for, and in the oddest way imaginable, a gift of no small value in itself,
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