Graced with those gifts the vulgar mostly prize, And if used wisely, precious to the wise, Wealth and high lineage;-Ruthven's name was known Less for ancestral greatness than its own: With boyhood's dreams the grand desire began Which, nerved by labour, lifts from rank the man Ev'n as the eye in Art's majestic halls Not on the frame but on the portrait falls; So to each nobler life the gaze we bound, Nor heed what casework clasps the picture round.
"The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P."
Edward Bulwer Lytton