beauté, naissance, la fleur de l'âge et de la santé; que de titres pour avoir tous les ridicules!"

I own, I thought this a bitter sarcasm, and could not believe a word of it. I accused Fothergill, in my own mind, of prejudice, perhaps of envy, at any rate of petty tyranny. Never would I believe that Hastings, who had so exclusively loved me at school, and introduced me to his aristocratic father and angelic sister, as almost an equal, could be proud, much less ridiculous.

My looks spoke my feelings; and Fothergill, seeing my emotion, good-naturedly, to change the conversation, said he would give me some tea at his rooms; an honour which, offered to a freshman and undergraduate, by a tutor and Master of Arts, I could not decline.

CHAPTER VIII.

EFFECTS OF OXFORD SOCIETY AND MANNERS ON
FOLJAMBE HASTINGS.

Spoke like a tall fellow that respects his reputation.

SHAKSPEARE.— -Rich. III.

NOTWITHSTANDING my tutor's kindness, and my sense of his condescension, being such an academical grandee in comparison with myself, I felt a sort of sullenness at the tea-table, of which I afterwards was ashamed. I was jealous for myself, and, though sufficiently indignant, jealous for Hastings too. For my own sake, I would not believe that he had slighted me, and for his, I would not believe that he could do so. I recollected, vividly and fondly, all the elegant superiorities of Foljambe Park, particularly those of what I called its young mistress; and I was angry with my kind, though shrewd and observing adviser, for the advice and opinions he had given. I had heard of college · pedants, and rusty tutors, and could not help, in my wisdom and my justice, ranking him as one of them. I then, for the first time, observed that his clothes were ill made, and not over well brushed; his band was rumpled, and not well starched; and his figure, though erect from decision of mind, was too ponderous to be elegant.

He knows nothing of Foljambe Park, thought I, and it is because he is insensible to the attractions of

the high manners, and ignorant of the beauty and grace, that reign there, that he desires to break this connexion. He never saw Bertha, and wishes to make me a yeoman like himself.

What injustice did I not do to this kind and honourable, as well as observing man, in this petulant opinion of him! Yet it was some time before I gave him the credit he deserved for cool judgment and knowledge of life, acquired by the skilful use he had made of his opportunities. As it was, I was out of humour, and as soon as possible disengaging myself from the honours of the tea party, I proceeded to moralize very differently, among the gay throng which of an evening peopled the shades of Christ Church walk.

Here I observed excellent specimens of provincial and academical consequence, in all the exhibitions of nature which my tutor had discussed. And very

varied were they, according as the pride of scholarship in the men, with its consequent power, and comfortable endowments, or the pride of beauty in the women, with its consciousness still more inflated from its scarcity, predominated.

The heads of houses equalled the pomp of generals on a parade; while their wives and daughters, with the sort of natural instinct inherent in the sex, played (and with equal success) the part of their supposed betters in the higher walks of life.

What particularly struck me, was the immense consequence given by the younger and unmarried females to a number of young men whose costume denoted them of quality, and who buzzed about them with gilded wings, dangerous to their young heads, and perhaps to their young hearts, if the hearts of coquets, which

most university beauties are, can ever be said to be in danger.

However this may be, the importance of these young men, or rather perhaps of the association kindled by the silk and velvet in which they were clothed, was fully demonstrated in the reception everywhere given them by fathers and mothers, and especially by daughters.

These last seemed to "rain influence, and judge the prize" of fashion in this microcosm of human life now beheld for the first time.

But what struck me still more on this occasion, was the poor and unimportant figure made by Commoners like myself, in comparison with the happier people I have mentioned,-happier, if to absorb the notice of the fair dryads of the walk, to the exclusion of us plebeians, was happiness; as I then thought it was. I felt, indeed, so uneasy under it, that I became pensive and melancholy amid the gaity that surrounded me, and was upon the point of returning home to hear what my mentor had to say upon it, when, sailing down the walk at the head of a bevy composed of the deities of the place, I beheld Hastings, in the full glory of university and fashionable consequence, occupying all attention from male and female.

As our eyes met, it was impossible for him not to know me, and I loved him still too much to repress the pleasure I had in seeing him. Undazzled therefore by his companions, and alive only to nature, I waited not for his recognition, but fairly and so pointedly sought his hand, that he could not refuse it. He gave it, however, with an embarrassed air, not the less because my eagerness, for a moment, discomposed the movement of his party, whose curiosity was piqued by

my brusquerie. Lord Albany and Sir Henry Melford in particular stared at me with lofty wonder, the ladies tittered, and my friend was evidently disconcerted by the interruption.

Do not, however, let me be unjust to Hastings; his embarrassment was not that of a vulgar coxcomb, ashamed of meeting an inferior in high company. He himself was too high, too much at his ease in that company, and too conscious of his own station and powers, to condescend to such a thought. The little awkwardness shewn, as he afterwards confessed, arose from a sort of shame, or rather a sense of ingratitude, which he felt, at having neglected an old companion who had always shewn such evident attachment to him.

With respect to myself, new to the world (especially the fine world), its manners and conventional signs, I felt no shame, for I had done no wrong. I was not even abashed, but was alive only to the pleasure of at last meeting my best and only friend, no matter how surrounded. As to his former seeming slight, therefore, it was all forgiven in a moment.

To do him justice, he perceived this, and whatever his feeling, he had not the heart to repulse me, but, his companions having passed on, seemed quite to recover himself, and said, with almost his old frankness, that he rejoiced to see me. Nay, though his friends once or twice looked back, as if inquiring what he could possibly have to do with a humble Queen's man, it did not detach him from the colloquy while it lasted. He even apologized for not having found me out, and, though he said (what I already felt to be true), that Oxford was very different from Sedbergh, hoped we should not forget our pleasant school days together.