midnight
Light as I may seem to the reader , bent upon the pleasures and the honours of the great world , as I really was , there had never , since I had recognized and formed a decided code of principles , been a single moment in which I had transgressed it ; and perhaps I was sterner and more inflexible in the tenets of my morality , such as they were , than even the most zealous worshipper of the letter , as well as the spirit of the law and the prophets , would require . Certainly there were many pangs within me , when I reflected , that to save a criminal , in whose safety I was selfishly concerned , I had tampered with my honour , paltered with the truth , and broken what I felt to be a peremptory and inviolable duty . Let it be for ever remembered , that once acknowledge and ascertain that a principle is publicly good , and no possible private motive should ever induce you to depart from it . It was with a heightened pulse , and a burning cheek , that I entered London ; before midnight I was in a high fever ; they sent for the vultures of physic -- I was bled copiously -- I was kept quiet in bed for six days , at the end of that time , my constitution and youth restored me . I took up one of the newspapers listlessly : Glanville 's name struck me ; I read the paragraph which contained it -- it was a high-flown and fustian panegyric on his genius and promise . I turned to another column , it contained a long speech he had the night before made in the House of Commons . `` Can such things be ? ''