This flame acts violently upon George. His bosom swells with ambition.
His genius breaks out prodigiously. He talks about the Good, the
Beautiful, the Ideal, &c., in and out of all season, and is virtuous and
eloquent almost beyond belief--in fact like Devereux, or P. Clifford, or
E. Aram, Esquires.
Inspired by Millwood and love, George robs the till, and mingles in the
world which he is destined to ornament. He outdoes all the dandies,
all the wits, all the scholars, and all the voluptuaries of the age--an
indefinite period of time between Queen Anne and George II.--dines
with Curll at St. John's Gate, pinks Colonel Charteris in a duel behind
Montague House, is initiated into the intrigues of the Chevalier St.
George, whom he entertains at his sumptuous pavilion at Hampstead, and
likewise in disguise at the shop in Cheapside.
His uncle, the owner of the shop, a surly curmudgeon with very little
taste for the True and Beautiful, has retired from business to the
pastoral village in Cambridgeshire from which the noble Barnwells came.
George's cousin Annabel is, of course, consumed with a secret passion
for him.
Some trifling inaccuracies may be remarked in the ensuing brilliant
little chapter; but it must be remembered that the author wished to
present an age at a glance: and the dialogue is quite as fine and
correct as that in the "Last of the Barons," or in "Eugene Aram," or
other works of our author, in which Sentiment and History, or the True
and Beautiful, are united.
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