"Well, sir, what do you think of our daffodils?" said Mr. Neville, pointing to them exultingly, "are they not enough to inspire a poet?"
"I am not poet enough to answer the question," said Hamilton, "but I remember the eldest of poets says they make very good salads."
"Ah ha!" said Mr. Neville, "I am glad you have not forgotten old Hesiod—but, however, I did not think of getting into Greek when I quoted Wordsworth."
"Nor I of hearing anything like common sense spring out of a quotation from him," said Hamilton. "Not but that all he says may be very fine, but I am of another school—I am a Byronian—he is the only man that is read in Town—those Lakeists that go and make faces at themselves on the waveless waters, and then run home to put their reflections upon paper, are quite outvoted now; even the ladies never think of them."
"No, I suppose not," said Mr. Neville, "any more than they would think of seeing hay-makers in their verandas, or a sheep-shearing in their drawings-rooms. But 'the children of darkness are wiser in their generation than the children of light,' and he who sings of nothing but lawless crimes, and sated vices, does wisely to address his song to the inhabitants of an overgrown and luxurious metropolis."
"Yes, yes; he is sure enough of sympathy, plenty of dancing daffodils there,—only of rather an opposite species. What do you say, Miss Neville, do you like the titled Bard?"
"Quite well enough, as a poet, to wish he had made choice of better subjects. Edward Longcroft says he has in him a fragment of almost every other poet's distinguishing excellence, but unfortunately his own genius is only a fragment itself, and, therefore, he produces nothing but fragments after all."
"Very wise in Mr. Longcroft—I dare say he could prove every thing he says most mathematically; but I fancy he will find the generality of his acquaintance admire diamond sparks more than brick-bats—though one is only a part, and the other a whole."
"Very good! very good!" said Mr. Neville, "but who have we here?" he added, as he looked towards the little gate. "Ah ha! here he is himself—now we can have diamond sparks versus brick-bats, as long as you like, and see who has the better of the argument."
A matter-of-fact-man is well portrayed in the following: