aristocratic connections! " I was a practical boy,
and I set to work to make money instead.
It was impossible for me to associate
comfortably with my schoolfellows, with such an
allowance as I possessed. I earned money,
therefore, by doing lessons for dunces, saved
it when I could, and lent my savings to young
spendthrifts, at extravagant rates of interest.
I led a surreptitious life of it, both in the
school and in the playground, and learnt my
first lessons in the occult science of Roguery
under the very shadow of the aristocratic
connections. I was found out, I was flogged,
lectured, sent to Coventry. I ran away, and
was flogged again. I ran away three times,
and was flogged three times. I made four
aristocratic connections, and had four pitched
battles with them; three thrashed me, and
one I thrashed. I learnt to play at cricket,
to hate rich people, to cure warts, to write
Latin verses, to swim, to recite speeches, to
cook kidneys on toast, to draw caricatures of
the masters, to construe Greek plays, to black
boots, and to receive kicks and serious advice
resignedly. Who will say that the fashionable
public school was of no use to me, after
that?

After I left school, I had the narrowest
escape possible of intruding myself into
another place of accommodation for
distinguished people; in other words, I was very
nearly being sent to college. Fortunately
for me, my father lost a law-suit just in the
nick of time, and was obliged to scrape
together every farthing of available money
that he possessed to pay for the luxury of
going to law. If he could have saved his
seven shillings, he would certainly have sent
me to scramble for a place in the pit of the
great university theatre; but his purse was
empty, and his son was not eligible therefore
for admission, in a gentlemanly capacity, at
the doors.

The next thing was to choose a profession.
Here the doctor was liberality itself, in leaving
me to my own devices. I was of a roving
adventurous temperament, and I should
have liked to go into the army. But where
was the money to come from, to pay for my
commission ? As to enlisting in the ranks,
and working my way up, the social institutions
of my country obliged the grandson of
Lady Malkinshaw to begin military life as an
officer and gentleman, or not to begin it at
all. The army, therefore, was out of the
question. The Church? Equally out of the
question: since I could not pay for admission
to the prepared place of accommodation for
distinguished people, and could not accept a
charitable free pass, in consequence of my
high connections. The Bar? I should be
five years getting to it, and should have to
spend two hundred a-year in going circuit
before I had earned a farthing. Physic?
This really seemed the only gentlemanly
refuge left; and yet, with the knowledge of
my father's experience before me, I was
ungrateful enough to feel a secret dislike
for it. It is a degrading confession to make ;
but I remember wishing I was not so highly
connected, and absolutely thinking that the
life of a commercial traveller would have
suited me exactly if I had not been a poor
gentleman. Driving about from place to
place, living jovially at inns, seeing fresh,
faces constantly, and getting money by all
this enjoyment, instead of spending it—what
a life for me, if I had been the son of a
haberdasher and the grandson of a groom's
widow !

While my father was uncertain what to do
with me, a new profession was suggested by a
friend, which I shall repent not having been
allowed to adopt, to the last day of my life.
This friend was an eccentric old gentleman
of large property, much respected in our
family. One day, my father, in my presence,
asked his advice about the best manner of
starting me in life, with due credit to
my connections and sufficient advantage to
myself.

"Listen to my experience," said our eccentric
friend, " and, if you are a wise man, you
will make up your mind as soon as you have
heard me. I have three sons. I brought my
eldest son up to the Church; he is said to be
getting on admirably, and he costs me three
hundred a-year. I brought my second son up
to the Bar; he is said to be getting on
admirably, and he costs me four hundred a-year.
I brought my third son up to Quadrilles—
he has married an heiress, and he costs me
nothing."

Ah, me! if that worthy sage's advice had
only been followed—if I had been brought up
to Quadrilles!—if I had only been cast loose
on the ball-rooms of London, to qualify under
Hymen, for a golden degree! O! you young
ladies with money, I was five feet ten in my
stockings; I was great at small-talk and
dancing; I had glossy whiskers, curling
locks, and a rich voice! Ye girls with golden
guineas, ye nymphs with crisp bank-notes,
mourn over the husband you have lost
among you—over the Rogue who has broken the
laws which, as the partner of a landed or
fundholding woman, he might have helped to make
on the benches of the British Parliament!
O! ye hearths and homes sung about in so
many songs—written about in so many books
—shouted about in so many speeches with
accompaniment of so much loud cheering:
what a settler on the hearth-rug; what a
possessor of property; what a bringer-up of a
family, was snatched away from you, when the
son of Doctor Softly was lost to the profession
of Quadrilles!

It ended in my resigning myself to the
misfortune of being a doctor. If I was a very
good boy and took pains, and carefully mixed
in the best society, I might hope in the
course of years to succeed to my father's
brougham, fashionably-situated house, and
clumsy and expensive footman. There was a