whatever. As can easily be supposed, I was
the butt of my fellow-students, the subject of
many sarcasms and practical jokes. The whole
of my Freshman year was a martyrdom. I had
no peace, was rhymed on by poetasters,
caricatured by draughtsmen, till the name of Potts
became proverbial for all that was eccentric,
ridiculous, and absurd.

Curran has said "one can't draw an indictment
against a nation;" in the same spirit did I
discover " one cannot fight his whole division."
For a while I believe I experienced a sort of
heroism in my solitary state; I felt the spirit of
a Coriolanus in my heart, and muttered, "I
banish you" but this self-supplied esteem did
not last long, and I fell into a settled melancholy.
The horrible truth was gradually forcing
its way slowly, clearly, through the mists of my
mind, that there might be something in all this
sarcasm, and I can remember to this hour the
day—ay, and the very place—wherein the
questions flashed across me: Is my hair as limp,
my nose as long, my back as arched, my eyes
as green as they have pictured them? Do I
drawl so fearfully in my speech? Do I drag
my heavy feet along so ungracefully? Good
Heavens! have they possibly a grain of fact to
sustain all, this fiction against me?

And if so—horrible thought—am I the stuff
to go forth and seek adventures? Oh the
ineffable bitterness of this reflection! I remember
it in all its anguish, and even now, after years
of such experience as have befallen few men, I
can recall the pain it cost me. While I was yet
in the paroxysm of that sorrow, which assured
me that I was not made for doughty deeds, nor
to captivate some fair princess, I chanced to
fall upon a little German volume entitled Wald
Wandelungen und Abentheure, von Heinrich
Stebbe. Forest rambles and adventures, and of
a student too! for so Herr Stebbe announces
himself, in a short introduction to the reader.
I am not going into any account of his book.
It is in Voss's Leipzig Catalogue, and not
unworthy of perusal by those who are sufficiently
imbued with Germanism to accept the changeful
moods of a mystical mind, with all its
visionary glimpses of light and shade, its doubts
fears, hopes and fancies, in lieu of real incidents
and actual events. Of adventures, properly
speaking, he had none. The people he met,
the scenes in which he bore his part, were as
common-place as need be. The whole narrative
never soared above that bread-and-butter life—
Butterbrod-Leben—which Germany accepts as
romance; but meanwhile the reflex of whatever
passed around him in the narrator's own mind,
was amusing; so ingeniously did he contrive to
interweave the imaginary with the actual, throwing
over the most ordinary pictures of life a
sort of hazy indistinctness—  meet atmosphere for
mystical creation.

If I did not always sympathise with him in
his brain-wrought wanderings, I never ceased to
take pleasure in his description of scenery, and
the heartfelt delight he experienced in journeying
through a world so beautiful and so varied.

There was also a little woodcut frontispiece
which took my fancy much, representing lum as
he stood leaning on his horse's mane, gazing
rapturously on the Elbe, from one of the cliffs
off the Saxon Switzerland. How peaceful he
looked, with his long hair waving gracefully on
his neck, and his large soft eyes turned on the
scene beneath him. His clasped hands, as they
lay on the horse's mane, imparted a sort of
repose, too, that seemed to say, " I could linger
here ever so long."  Nor was the horse itself
without a significance in the picture: he was
a long-maned, long-tailed, patient-looking beast,
well befitting an enthusiast, who doubtless took
but little heed of how he went or where. If his
lazy eye denoted lethargy, his broad feet and
short legs vouched for his sure-footedness.

Why should not I follow Stebbe's example?
Surely there was nothing too exalted or
extravagant in his plan of life. It was simply to see
the world as it was, with the aid of such
combinations as a fertile fancy could contribute; not
to distort events, but to arrange them, just as
the landscape painter in the licence of his craft
moves that massive rock more to the foreground,
and throws that stone pine a little further to the
left of his canvas. There was, indeed, nothing to
prevent my trying the experiment. Ireland was
not less rich in picturesque scenery than Germany,
Elbe, the banks of the Blackwater and the Nore
were still full of woodland beauty; and then, there
was lake scenery unrivalled throughout Europe.

I turned to Stebbe's narrative for details of
his outfit. His horse he bought at Nordheim
for two hundred and forty gulden—about ten
pounds; his saddle and knapsack cost him a little
more than forty shillings; with his map, guide-book,
compass, and some little extras, all were
comprised within twenty pounds sterling—surely
not too costly an equipage for one who was
adventuring on a sea wide as the world itself.

As my trial was a mere experiment, to be
essayed on the most limited scale, I resolved not
to buy, but only hire, a horse, taking him by the
day, so that if any change of mind or purpose
supervened, I should not find myself in any
embarrassment.

A fond uncle had just left me a legacy of a
hundred pounds, which, besides, was the season
of the long vacation; thus did everything
combine to favour the easy execution of a plan, which
I determined forthwith to put into practice.

"Something quiet and easy to ride, sir, you
said?" repeated Mr. Dycer after me, as I entered
his great establishment for the sale and hire of
horses. " Show the gentleman four hundred and
twelve."

"Oh, Heaven forbid!" I exclaimed, in my
ignorance; "such a number would only confuse me."

"You mistake me, sir," blandly interposed the
dealer; " I meant the horse that stands at that
number. Lead him out, Tim. He's gentle as a
lamb, sir, and, if you find he suits you, can be had
for a song.—  I mean, a ten-pound note."

"Has he a long mane and tail?" I asked,
eagerly.