RANK AND TALENT.
VOL. III.
PRINTED BY A. J. VALPY, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
RANK AND TALENT;
A NOVEL.
BY THE
AUTHOR OF “TRUCKLEBOROUGH-HALL.”
Why, Sir, ’tis neither satire nor moral, but the mere passageof an history; yet there are a sort of discontented creatures,that bear a stingless envy to great ones, and these will wrestthe doings of any man to their base malicious appliment.
Marston.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1829.
We left Dr. Crack at the end of the lastvolume in a fair way of falling deeply in lovewith Miss Henderson, and there, for the present,we will leave him still, conscious that noone envies him. Our attention is now requiredin another quarter. The gentle, unobtrusive[2]Clara Rivolta, whom nature indeed had neverdestined to be a heroine or even to be talkedabout, continued to undergo with much forbearanceand quietness the persecuting attentionsof the fragrant Henry AugustusTippetson, who divided his time and attentionsbetween the Countess of Trimmerstone and thegrand-daughter of old John Martindale. Whatpoints of resemblance there were between thesetwo ladies is not easy to say. Tippetson, however,thought much of rank: it was so greatan honor to be intimate with a countess. Everybody said that Tippetson was too intimate withthe Countess, and another every body said thathe was going to be married to Clara Rivolta.
Our readers must have observed that we arein general tolerably candid. But sometimeswe do find ourselves glowing with an indignationnot easily expressed, and feeling a contempt,for the conveyance of which no ordinary termsor allowed language will suffice. This contemptand this indignation do we now feel for thatmost execrable fribble, for that most attenuatedshred of a dandikin, Henry Augustus Tippetson.[3]Singleton Sloper is a lazy, ignorant lob, andDr. Crack is a conceited puppy; but in neitherof these two do we discern any thing at allequivalent in moral turpitude to that effeminate,that more than unmanly, that almostinhuman selfishness that disgraces, or ratherconstitutes, the character of Tippetson.This young gentleman had learned by rotethe common places of polished society, andhe played them off with a vile, cunningdexterity on the simple Clara Rivolta, tillshe was almost deceived as to his character.Her mind had been injured, though unintentionally,by the trumpery sentimentality ofMiss Henderson’s foolish correspondence. Thecircumstances, also, of Mr. Martindale’s oddnessof character, of Signora Rivolta’s retired