LETTER II.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR DAVID,

OMAN'S, MARCH 6

Do you recollect Wastle of Trinity? I suspect not; but you have heard of him a thousand times. And yet you may have met him at my rooms, or North's; for I think he determined, after you began to reside. At all events, you remember to have heard me describe his strange eccentric character-his dissolute behaviour during the first years of his residence-his extravagant zeal of study afterwards-last of all, the absurdity of his sudden elopement, without a degree, after having astonished the examining masters by the splendid commencement of his examination. The man is half-mad in some things; and that is the key of the whole mystery.

Wastle and I were great friends during the

first terms I spent at Jesus. He had gone to school at Harrow with my brother Samuel, and called on me the very day I entered. What a life was ours in that thoughtless prime of our days! We spent all the mornings after lecture in utter lounging-eating ice at Jubb's-flirting with Miss Butler-bathing in the Charwell, and so forth. And then, after dinner, we used to have our fruit and wine carried into the garden, (I mean at Trinity,) and there we sat, three or four of us, sipping away for a couple of hours, under the dark refreshing shade of those old beechen bowers. Evensong was no sooner over, than we would down to the Isis, and man one, or sometimes two of Mother Hall's boats, and so run races against each other, or some of our friends, to Iffley or Sandford. What lots of bread and butter we used to devour at tea, and what delight we felt in rowing back in the cool misty evening-sometimes the moon up long ere we reached Christ Church meadows again. A light supper-cheese-and-bread and lettuces-and a joyous bowl of Bishop-these were the regular conclusion. I would give half I am worth to live one week of it over again. At that time, Wastle and I, Tom Vere (of Corpus,) and one

or two more, were never separate above three or four hours in the day.

I was on my way to deliver a letter of introduction to a young barrister of this place, when, in turning the corner of a street, my old friend, Will Wastle, passed close at my elbow. I knew him in a moment, although he is greatly changed, and called after him. He turned round with a fierce air, as if loth to be disturbed, (for he was evidently up to the chin in meditation;) but, on recognising his ancient acquaintance, nothing could be more hearty than the kindness of his countenance. After a few hurried interrogations on both sides, diversified by scarcely any responses on either, I took his arm and began to explain to him the purposes of my visit to a city in which he had so little expectation of seeing me. He accompanied me immediately to the Calton Hill, of which I spoke in my last, and where, as he assured me, he spends at least one hour every day when in Edinburgh. On coming down he carried me to the Hotel where I now am; and, having seen my baggage and horses fairly established, and walked a good deal about the town, we proceeded to his house, where I remained for the rest of the day. I assure

you this rencounter has afforded me the highest pleasure, and I doubt not it will be of infinite use to me, moreover-for Wastle is perhaps, of all men, the very person I should have selected to act as my Cicerone in Scotland. Indeed, I wonder at myself for not having made more accurate enquiries about him before I set out; but I had somehow got a confused idea in my head that he was resident in France or Germany, and really had never thought of him in relation to my own schemes of visiting his country. He has already introduced me to several very pleasant fellows here. But before I describe his companions, I must endeavour to give you some little notion of himself.

After leaving Oxford under the strange circumstances you have often heard me speak of, he proceeded to the North, where he spent several years in severe study, not a whit discouraged in his views, or shaken from his attachments, by the singular catastrophe to which the constitutional and irresistible panic of a moment had exposed him. He changed, however, but indeed it was scarcely possible for him to do otherwise, the course and tenor of his usual pursuits; passing for a time from the classics, with

the greater part of whom he had formed a pretty accurate acquaintance, and flinging himself over head and ears into the very heart of Gothic antiquities, and the history, poetry, and romance of the middle ages. These he has quitted by fits and starts, and spent the intervals of their neglect in making himself far better skilled than is common in the modern literature of foreign countries, as well as of England; but ever since, and up to this moment, they form the staple of his occupation-the daily bread of his mind. He lives almost continually in the days gone by, and feels himself, as he says, almost a stranger among matters which might be supposed to be nearer to him. And yet he is any thing but a stranger to the world he actually lives in; although indeed he does perhaps regard not a few both of its men and its things, with somewhat of the coldness of an unconcerned visitor. In short, for there is no need to disguise the fact to you, he has nursed himself into such a fervent veneration for the thoughts and feelings of the more ancient times of his country and of ours, (for as to that matter he is no bigot,) that he cannot witness, without a deep mixture of bile, the adoration paid by those around him to