"
"And do you not go with him?" said his companion.
"To what purpose?" said Lord Dalgarno. "To hear his wise lordship
speak musty politics in false Latin, which the old fox always uses,
that he may give the learned Majesty of England an opportunity of
correcting his slips in grammar? That were a rare employment!"
"Nay," said Lord Nigel, "but out of respect, to wait on my lord your
father."
"My lord my father," replied Lord Dalgarno, "has blue-bottles enough
to wait on him, and can well dispense with such a butterfly as myself.
He can lift the cup of sack to his head without my assistance; and,
should the said paternal head turn something giddy, there be men
enough to guide his right honourable lordship to his lordship's right
honourable couch.--Now, do not stare at me, Nigel, as if my words were
to sink the boat with us. I love my father--I love him dearly--and I
respect him, too, though I respect not many things; a trustier old
Trojan never belted a broadsword by a loop of leather. But what then?
He belongs to the old world, I to the new. He has his follies, I have
mine; and the less either of us sees of the other's peccadilloes, the
greater will be the honour and respect--that, I think, is the proper
phrase--I say the _respect_ in which we shall hold each other. Being
apart, each of us is himself, such as nature and circumstances have
made him; but, couple us up too closely together, you will be sure to
have in your leash either an old hypocrite or a young one, or perhaps
both the one and t'other.
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