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His appointment as leader was strongly supported by the chairman of the committee, Sir William Stawell, and it appears to have been backed up by those kind of general testimonials as to ability which recommend a man almost equally for any grade or position. Of special aptitude or scientific training he possessed no pretension, and his selection was a fatal blunder.
If he could have guessed that he would have come to be regarded, even by some who ought to know better, as a sort of giant Cormoran or Eat-'em-alive-oh! a being out of a fairy tale, whom nobody is expected to take seriously; nay, as a symbol, as often as not, for ridiculous and inflated pretension. No one in his own day doubted his existence; no one thought of laughing at his name.
Unlike his master, he made no pretension to any gift of poetic power, but his inexhaustible memory made him a living encyclopaedia; and for his stock of anecdotes and trooper's tales he was matchless.
Their activity covered a very varied ground, from the mere commonplaces of literature to the most practical details of material production. If they now and then relapsed into inquiries about the laws of Crete, they more often discussed positive and scientific theses, and rather resembled our chambers of agriculture than bodies of more learned pretension.
Many country houses are pleasing from their complete simplicity; plastered, and washed pink, yellow, or white, they are devoid of all architectural pretension, and their low roofs of red pantiles look much more natural than do the steep slated roofs of some of the more modern villas.
The civic spirit developed a good deal during the fifteenth century, no doubt in connection with the simultaneous increase in the wealth and social pretension of the rising merchant middle class. It appeared in the greater respect bestowed on the office of Mayor and the pomp and reverence attached to his position.
They were often rung on other occasions when they would have been much better silent. At Bath no stranger of the smallest pretension to fashion could arrive without being welcomed by a peal of the Abbey bells. The curfew has not even yet fallen entirely into disuse.
It is supposed that a great service is awarded to them by substituting for a frivolous aim that of charming a moral aim; and their influence upon morality, which is so apparent, necessarily militates against this pretension.
To coin new words is a pretension to legislation in language which is seldom successful; and, before recourse is taken to so desperate an expedient, it is advisable to examine the dead and learned languages, with the hope and the probability that we may there meet with some adequate expression of the notion we have in our minds.
We shall proceed to examine this pretension; and first with regard to the influence of volition over the organs of the body.
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