put in his way to do in the days of his
pupilage. Why, Sir, by attaining the summit
of my ambition, and being elected a Fellow
of my College, I was ruined!"

"Indeed!"

"Utterly; but the fact is you will not
understand this question until you hear my
story. Some one sketched, the other day, in a
popular periodical, (I suspect it was you), the
career of a negligent dog who neglected his
college studies and devoted his attention
exclusively to college pleasures, and was ruined
accordingly. My misfortunes were occasioned
by availing myself too assiduously of the
advantages offered at the University."

"You threaded your way so far into the
mazes of learning that you found you could
not extricate yourself from them when you
entered the open paths of Life."

"Precisely."

And, without further ado, the old gentleman
commenced, in substance, the following narration:—

"My father was a highly respectable wine-
merchant, in the town of Mudborough. He
commenced in quite a humble way, I have
been told, and owed his rise in life to his own
exertions. In ten years after first setting up
in business, he had realised enough to marry
on; in another ten, he had his crest and his
villa; in ten more, he was of unquestionable
Norman descent. My mother considered
herself to be of a higher family than my father's,
and of better breeding, and waged a furious
war of scowls and frowns against certain
manners and customs of his which she
declared to be more befitting a shopkeeper than
a gentleman of wealth and family.

We were two brothers. Charles, the
younger, was to be admitted into my father's
office, with the view of succeeding him in the
business, which was too lucrative to be
suffered to pass entirely out of the family. For
me, a higher destiny was reserved. I was to
be a classical scholar. What my father of all
things most regretted was that he had not
himself received a classical education. I have
known him, indeed, when reading a sermon
or a treatise, to assume a puzzled air, as if he
were but ill at ease amongst the grammatical
expressions which he found there. I was,
therefore, placed under a dynasty of tutors,
from an idea that at school sufficient pains
were not expended on the boys' instruction.
Under their excellent system, I was reading
Thucydides in the original Greek before I
could understand Mrs. Markham in the
original English; and, about the time that my
father forbade my looking at the newspapers
on account of the immoralities which
sometimes crept into the police reports, I was
deeply read in the loves of the heathen Gods
and Goddesses.

"'Excellent! excellent!' my father would
sometimes cry out, when, on his asking me
what author, or whose life I had been reading,
I came out with some uncommonly hard name.
That of Heliogabalus, I remember, particularly
pleased him. 'Laelius on Friendship
and Scipio on old age! Scipio and Laelius!
Very good, sound, entertaining writers. Make
yourself acquainted with their writings by all
means.' I believe that the poor man had
fitted up a panorama, on a small scale, in his
own mind, in which I was represented as the
beau ideal of a scholar, my breast covered
with medals, and my hands covered with ink.
I should be the hope of the family. I should
be one day a leading man in Mudborough,
and quote Horace to enraptured vestry-
meetings. I should overwhelm the obnoxious
Robinson, who had long been the bug-
bear of my father's political and municipal
existence, inasmuch as he belaboured and
pummelled him with quotations from the
Latin poets, which my father, from not
understanding, was, of course, unable to
reply to.

"I remember very well the day on which I
first went up to Cambridge. I had been
crammed like a turkey-cock up to the very
night before, and was filled almost to bursting
with the names of ancient towns and intrigues
of Jupiter, which they had managed to make
me contain. When I looked upon my tutor,
and recollected that that was the very man
whose exploits I had read of in the Calendar,
my knees knocked together, and my hair
stood on end. I could have fallen down and
worshipped a Senior Medallist! However—
courage! In three years my mother said—
I should be one too.

"I believe that no man could have read
harder than I did during my college course.
My father insisted upon my having two
private tutors, a mathematical and a classical
one, for an hour a day each. I was up early,
and in bed late; I never wasted my time in
useless pursuits, in billiard-rooms or card-
parties, in empty conversation, or in attending
college lectures. For my private tutors I
paid the sum of one hundred and sixty-two
pounds a year, namely, fourteen pounds a
term and thirty pounds for the Long Vacation
to my mathematical tutor; and twenty pounds
a term and thirty pounds for the Long Vacation
to my classical tutor. My father never
grudged the expense in the least; he was
well content that I should be deluged with
that which he so much regretted not having
had forced upon him in his own youth. I
believe that I was always naturally of a
cheerful disposition, but it must be confessed
that all this load of mythology and antiquity
weighed down upon me like Etna upon the
imprisoned Typhon. I saw little beyond the
uncleaned windows of my room, but being of
a strong frame and still stronger resolution,
determined to persevere.

"I remember that an effort was at one time
made by a very steady and respectable young
man, who occupied the adjoining rooms, to
get up what he called some 'English literary
readings,' of an evening. They were to