text:  The quiet assumption of Dulness for the highest point of desirable human attainment--the good-nature and indulgent parental concern of the wish to save the younger emulator of his own glory from spending superfluous pains on a consummation sure to come of itself--the confidence of the veteran Dullard in the blood of the race and in the tried and undegenerate worth of his successor--the sufficient direction of a life and reign comprehended summed up concentrated in the one master-precept--"do not labour to be dull"--are inimitable