Why, now, it is strange I should forget them. Let me see (with his hand to his forehead). Now I have them,
'Ah, mighty Love, that it were inward heat Which made this precious limbeck sweet! But what, alas! ah, what does it avail!'
I need not repeat any more. This will give you an idea of the style and sentiment of that wonderful poem."
"It is certainly very fine," said the young lady, innocently. "Did you not hear those beautiful lines, Arthur, which Sidney has just quoted from Milton?" asked Miss Boast.
"Are they not fine?" said Sidney to Arthur.
"Are you sure that the quotation is from Milton?" inquired Mr. Smith, who was listening to the conversation.
"Are they, Arthur?" asked Smith, who had his suspicions, and apprehended another display of Sidney's pedantry, and was determined if possible to put a check on his folly.
"If you require me to be candid in my answer," said Arthur, quietly, "I do not think that they do belong to Milton at all."
"Whose are they, then?" asked Sidney, rather petulantly.
"They are Cowley's, to be found in vol. i., p. 132, of his works."
"I never knew that Milton's poem was tragedy, and that he wrote it in German until now," observed Mr. Smith, ironically.
"That is new historical fact, if fact it be," said Arthur. "I always thought he wrote it in English, and that the poem was of the epic order."
Sidney sat confounded, but not conquered in his fault. He would not admit his error, nor would he cease his pedantic exhibitions. He gave two or three more displays before the party separated, and with similar results. Enough, however, has been given here to show the excessive folly of this habit, and the just ridicule to which it is exposed.
"What a pity that Sidney makes such preposterous pretensions to learning in his conversation," said Smith the next day to Arthur.
"It certainly is," answered Arthur; "but he is generally so when in the company of any he thinks educated. He aims at equality with them, and even to rise above them, with his comparatively limited acquirements. He rarely, or ever, attains his end. His folly almost invariably meets with an exposure in one way or another. I have met with him on several occasions previous to last night, and he was the same on every one."