At length, having wilfully
outraged the most important regulations, he was expelled; and he
made his expulsion the subject of a satire equally personal and
philosophic, and which obtained applause for the great talent which it
displayed, even from those who lamented its want of judgment and the
misconduct of its writer. Flushed with success, Cadurcis at length
found, to his astonishment, that Nature had intended him for a poet.
He repaired to London, where he was received with open arms by the
Whigs, whose party he immediately embraced, and where he published a
poem, in which he painted his own character as the hero, and of which,
in spite of all the exaggeration and extravagance of youth, the genius
was undeniable. Society sympathised with a young and a noble poet;
his poem was read by all parties with enthusiasm; Cadurcis became the
fashion. To use his own expression, 'One morning he awoke, and found
himself famous.' Young, singularly handsome, with every gift of nature
and fortune, and with an inordinate vanity that raged in his soul,
Cadurcis soon forgot the high philosophy that had for a moment
attracted him, and delivered himself up to the absorbing egotism which
had ever been latent in his passionate and ambitious mind. Gifted with
energies that few have ever equalled, and fooled to the bent by the
excited sympathies of society, he poured forth his creative and daring
spirit with a license that conquered all obstacles, from the very
audacity with which he assailed them.
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