On one occasion, but not at the house of Mr. Flint, I passed an evening in company with a gentleman said to be a scholar and a man of reading; he was also what is called a serious gentleman, and he appeared to have pleasure in feeling that his claim to distinction was acknowledged in both capacities.  There was a very amiable serious lady in the company, to whom he seemed to trust for the development of his celestial pretensions, and to me he did the honour of addressing most of his terrestrial superiority.  The difference between us was, that when he spoke to her, he spoke as to a being who, if not his equal, was at least deserving high distinction; and he gave her smiles, such as Michael might have vouchsafed to Eve.  To me he spoke as Paul to the offending Jews; he did not, indeed, shake his raiment at me, but he used his pocket-handkerchief so as to answer the purpose; and if every sentence did not end with “I am clean,” pronounced by his lips, his tone, his look, his action, fully supplied the deficiency.

Our poor Lord Byron, as may be supposed, was the bull’s-eye against which every dart in his black little quiver was aimed.  I had never heard any serious gentleman talk of Lord Byron at full length before, and I listened attentively.  It was evident that the noble passages which are graven on the hearts of the genuine lovers of poetry had altogether escaped the serious gentleman’s attention; and it was equally evident that he knew by rote all those that they wish the mighty master had never written.  I told him so, and I shall not soon forget the look he gave me.

Of other authors his knowledge was very imperfect, but his criticisms very amusing.  Of Pope, he said, “He is so entirely gone by, that in our country it is considered quite fustian to speak of him”

But I persevered, and named “the Rape of the Lock” as evincing some little talent, and being in a tone that might still hope for admittance in the drawing-room; but, on the mention of this poem, the serious gentleman became almost as strongly agitated as when he talked of Don Juan; and I was unfeignedly at a loss to comprehend the nature of his feelings, till he muttered, with an indignant shake of the handkerchief, “The very title!”

At the name of Dryden he smiled, and the smile spoke as plainly as a smile could speak, “How the old woman twaddles!”

“We only know Dryden by quotations.  Madam, and these, indeed, are found only in books that have long since had their day.”

“And Shakspeare, sir?”

“Shakspeare, Madam, is obscene, and, thank God, WE are sufficiently advanced to have found it out!  If we must have the abomination of stage plays, let them at least be marked by the refinement of the age in which we live.”

This was certainly being au courant du jour.

Of Massenger he knew nothing.  Of Ford he had never heard.  Gray had had his day.  Prior he had never read, but understood he was a very childish writer.  Chaucer and Spenser he tied in a couple, and dismissed by saying, that he thought it was neither more nor less than affectation to talk of authors who wrote in a tongue no longer intelligible.