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SOME LADIES OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 523 customer strolled in. And the best of it was, that no one saw anything extraordinary in this. If he came to a pas- sage he could not translate, he would bring his book to the piazza, and get assistance from some of the gentlemen there who were learned in the classics of antiquity ; all of which seemed quite natural and ordinary. Then as to chivalry — the grand politeness, the Sidney style, — supposed by some to be extinct. In our war, many a Sidney served in the ranks ; one act of one of whom was this: Twenty men, thirsty and wounded, were waiting on a hot day, after a battle near Chattanooga, their turn to be attended to. One of the gentlemen of* the Christian Commission came up at length, bearing the priceless treasure of a pail of water and a tin cup. He handed the first cupful to the soldier who seemed most to need the cooling, cleansing liquid ; for he was badly wounded in the mouth, from which blood was oozing. " No," said this sublime Sidney of the ranks : " I must drink last ; for, you know, I shall make the cup bloody." And there were a thousand men in that army who would have done the same. In this country certainly, and, I think, throughout Christendom, if the spirit of caste still lives in vulgar minds, it is generally recognized as vulgarity ; it hides itself, and is ashamed. " Would you believe it ? " said Horace Walpole, " when an artist is patronized now-a-days, he thinks it is he who confers distinction ! " The courtly old pensioner evidently thought that this was mere insolence and absurdity. This man, who had lived all his life on the bounty of the English people — on an unearned pension of four thousand pounds a year, pro- cured for him by his father, Sir Robert, — had not the slightest doubt of his intrinsic superiority to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Fanny Burney, Garrick,or Handel ! Nor. had any other man of his order in Europe. Some