midnight
Like other people , I have too frequently been desirous to make my principles bend to my practice . Though the door was the door of a bishop and we had the text in our favour , ` Knock and it shall be opened , ' yet Enoch , no doubt remembering his own good breeding , was too cautious to ask if his lordship were at home . He bade the servant say that a clergyman of the church of England and a young gentleman from Oxford , bringing letters from the president of -- college and other dignitaries of the university , requested an audience . The message was delivered , and we were ushered into a parlour , the walls of which were decorated with the heads of the English archbishops , surrounding Hogarth 's modern midnight conversation . There was not a book in the room ; but there were six or eight newspapers . With these we amused ourselves for some time , till the approach of the bishop was announced by the creaking of his shoes , the rustling of his silk apron , and the repeated hems with which he collected his dignity . The moment I saw him , his presence reminded me of my old acquaintance , the high-fed brawny doctors of Oxford .