Sentence:  He had enough of that faculty of small talk to be sufficiently eloquent upon insignificant topics; he could point a compliment, or envelope a double meaning with all the readiness of a practitioner in that commodious art, and indeed he was not <WSD>behindhand</WSD> with any man of modern honour in the true principles of the sect ... 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Inferior, less advanced (compared "with" someone "in" something).