Canning? But there are others who say that he strangely reminds them of the latter, and that there exists a hidden affinity or relation between them.
It is, perhaps, in their equally middle-class birth and personal appearance, in the difficulty of their position, in their invincible vigour, and in resistance to feudal aristocratic attack that the similarity between Perier and Canning consists. Not at all, in their careers and personally developed tendencies or aim. The first, born and nursed on the soft pillows of prosperity, could tranquilly work out his best desires, and calmly take his part in the opulent Opposition which led the bourgeoisie during the days of the Restoration against Aristocracy and Jesuitry. The other, George Canning, on the contrary, born of unhappy parents, was the poor child of a poor mother, who, waiting and weeping, nursed him by day, and to gain him bread by which to live, went by night to the theatre to play and laugh. Then passing from the minor misery of poverty to the greater misery of brilliant dependence, he endured the support of an uncle and the patronage of a proud nobility.[1]
- ↑ This is an admirable passage, as every reader will observe, and it is made touching by truth. Heine himself was always dependent more or less, in a pecuniary sense, on an uncle, and,
