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Autobiographical Recollections of Sir John Bowring
Autobiographical Recollections of Sir John Bowring Author:John Bowring Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: COMMERCIAL EXPERIENCES. EAKLY LIFE AS A MERCHANT. In June 1811, I was settled in London as a clerk in a merchant's counting-house. I had not many friends, ... more »but such as I had received me with singular kindness. I cannot forget the hospitable attentions I found under the roof of Mr and Mrs Parkes, who were then, from a situation of great worldly depression, gradually rising in wealth and prosperity. I looked upon Mr Parkes with great respect, for he was an author, and a popular one. All literary objects I was disposed to venerate, and though Mr Parkes overestimated his own powers, and was too fond of appearing to be acquainted with matters of which he was ignorant, yet his calm sound sense, and the industrious habits of his mind, made him a valuable friend and a judicious counsellor. I owe him much, but will give an instance ad docendum of his weakness. He was engaged in a controversy as to the greater or less safety of employing oil in sugar-refining, and wrote a pamphlet—clever enough but ill-tempered— which was full of Latin quotations, furnished him by some too busy friend. They had nothing to do with the matter in dispute, and were personal, but they had a classical air. Now Mr Parkes could not understand, far less apply them, and when accused of calling in auxiliaries to his help, he never had the courage to desist from taking all the credit of the quotations to himself, and though he would not tell a falsehood about the matter, he always insisted that he had all the books quoted in his library, that he could point out every passage, and that he had learned Latin at school.Ho had a great passion for literary distinctions. It was his ruling passion, in truth, and his industry and intrepidity in hunting them out, his delight in obtaining, and his unsubdued ardour when he fa...« less