ever I found indolence or indifference undermining resolution, he glared upon me, and I returned to study.

Much, however, was also owing to recovered health and spirits, and I in secret boasted to myself that the infliction I had suffered was the last tribute I should pay to the influence of Bertha.

The romance of the "Lover's Hope" fell, as it deserved, into oblivion, and perhaps no small help to me in the affair arose from the total absence of Granville. That feeder of flame, even when most intent on extinguishing it, returned not to Oxford for many months, and in the interval never wrote to me.

He had joined a gay party at Paris, of which the centre, ornament, and illustration, as he afterwards. told me, was that Lady Hungerford whose bust I had observed in Bertha's garden-room. Here he passed the whole winter.

If Bertha had forgotten me, she at least had no opportunity of discovering that she herself was remembered. It is true, little remembrances of her kindness would too often flit across, so as almost to unman me; but the remembrance, also, that this kindness was nothing more than good-will, went far to arm me against her; and when I repeated, as I did, at least once a day, the emphatic words, "Mr. De Clifford, why is this? You must not breathe a syllable in this style; surely I have given you no reason to think I expect it"-all this operated upon me like a goading stimulant, whenever I felt my courage beginning to droop.

Meantime, I was not ill pleased to think, from Granville's absence, that the family at the Park had not the means of knowing the influence they had so long retained over me. How far I may have indulged myself sometimes in thinking that they might wish this were otherwise, and desire to know at least what was become of me, I will not inquire.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE FRESH AND GREATER OBJECTS WHICH MY TUTOR SET BEFORE ME, AND MY EAGERNESS TO PURSUE THEM.

As the world were now but to begin.-SHAKSPEARE.—Hamlet.

THUS, in fact, passed a very long period of my early academical life, varied with little scenes, which have become favourites in my recollections. My progress to recovery was not only owing to my dedication of myself to letters, but the recovery advancing made my progress in letters still greater. In this, Fothergill never failed me, and opened, as I grew ripe for it, much wider sources of information than was confined

to what is called learning. For a man who was to live in the world, which he always bade me recollect I was to do, there were two sciences, he said, worth all the rest-Modern History and Modern Manners-by which last he meant the morals of men.

It was surprising how much a mere Cumberland boor (as he with some affectation called himself) knew of the first of these. Of the last, I have given many specimens. In the first, however, he had profited by his intimacy with Lord Castleton, who, highly gifted,

and living himself on a sea of politics, was necessarily devoted to, and well understood, those subjects; and what he knew he had not failed to communicate to Fothergill, and Fothergill to me.

"Who knows," said my tutor, "but if you accomplish yourself in this interesting knowledge, you may one day be acquainted with this excellent and able nobleman, and bring it more to profit in the world than I did."

The thought struck instantaneously and deeply into my mind, and, without having any definite ideas upon it, it sharpened my industry, so that I acquired a very decent modicum of modern memoirs, politics, and diplomacy.

But even superior to this, in Fothergill's mind, was the inexhaustible, the never-ending, still beginning subject of human nature. "This, however," he said, "you can never acquire with closed doors."

He was here indeed, or would have been, a favourite disciple of Johnson, and would have walked Fleetstreet and the Strand with as much success as the sage. In pursuance of this, he laid before me a plan for the long vacations (especially as my cure of Bertha advanced) which was charming to my fancy.

"Go," said he, "pay your duty to your father and mother; shew and gladden them with your improvements; but do not stay too long. Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits.' See the world in all

the shapes of it you can master.

You cannot do it en

grand seigneur; you cannot afford a post-chaise ; and if you could, it would be the readiest way to de

feat your object. Perhaps even a horse might be objectionable. A philosopher on foot (or we will ennoble him with the name of a peripatetic) finds out most of life. For this purpose, indeed, a stage-coach is not despicable, but a private carriage will tell you nothing. A pedestrian expedition, however, is the thing. This I should have found out of myself (for I have often practised it) even without the glowing panegyric upon it by Rousseau, which, with a view to my proposal, I have looked out for you."

So saying, he put the volume into my hands, and I read, with much interest, the following passages:—

"Jamais je n'ai tant pensé, tant existé, tant vécu, tant été moi, si j'ose ainsi dire, que dans ces voyages que j'ai faits seul et à pied. La marche a quelque chose qui anime mes idées; je ne puis presque penser quand je reste en place; il faut que mon corps soit en branle pour y mettre mon esprit. La vue de la campagne, la succession des aspects agréables, le grand air, le grand appétit, la bonne santé que je gagne en marchant; la liberté du cabaret, l'éloignement de tout ce qui me fait sentir mon dépendance, de tout ce qui me rappelle à ma situation, tout cela dégage mon âme, me donne une plus grande audace de penser, me jette en quelque sorte dans l'immensité des êtres, pour les combiner, les choisir, me les approprier sans gêne et sans crainte; je dispose en maître de la nature entière; mon cœur errant d'objet en objet, s'unit, s'identifie à ceux qui le flattent, s'entoure d'images charmantes, s'enivre de sentiments délicieux. Si pour les fixer je m'amuse à les décrire en moi-même,