PELHAM'S EDUCATION.

AM an only child. My father was the younger son of one of our oldest earls; my mother, the dowerless daughter of a Scotch peer. Mr. Pelham was a moderate Whig, and

gave sumptuous dinners. Lady Frances was a woman of taste, and particularly fond of diamonds and old china. Vulgar people know nothing of the necessaries required in good society, and the credit they give is as short as their pedigree. Six years after my birth there was an execution in the house. My mother was just setting off on a visit to the Duchess of D-; she declared it was impossible to go without her diamonds. The chief of the bailiffs declared it was impossible to trust them out of sight. The matter was compromisedthe bailiff went with my mother to C, and was introduced as my tutor. "A man of singular merit," whispered my mother, "but so shy!" Fornately, the bailiff was abashed, and by losing his impudence he kept the secret. At the end of the week the diamonds went to the jeweller's, and Lady Frances wore paste.

I think it was about a month afterwards that a sixteenth cousin left my mother twenty thousand pounds. "It will just pay off our most importunate creditors, and equip me for Melton," said Mr. Pelham.

"It will just redeem my diamonds, and re-furnish the house," said Lady Frances.

The latter alternative was chosen. My father went down to run his last horse at Newmarket, and my mother received nine hundred people in a Turkish tent. Both were equally fortunate, the Greek and the Turk; my father's horse lost, in consequence of which he pocketed five thousand pounds, and my mother looked so charming as a Sultana, that Seymour Conway fell desperately in love with her.

Mr. Conway had just caused two divorces; and, of course, all the women in London were dying for him; judge then the pride which Lady Frances felt at his addresses. The end of the season was unusually dull, and my mother, after having looked over her list of engagements, and

ascertained that she had none remaining worth staying for, agreed to elope with her new lover.

The carriage was at the end of the square-my mother, for the first time in her life, got up at six o'clock. Her foot was on the step, and her hand next to Mr. Conway's heart, when she remembered that her favourite china monster and her French dog were left behind. She insisted on returning-re-entered the house, and was coming down-stairs, with one under each arm, when she was met by my father and two servants. My father's valet had discovered the flight (I forget how), and awakened his master.

When my father was convinced of his loss, he called for his dressinggown-searched the garret and the kitchen-looked into the maid's drawers, and the cellaret-and finally declared he was distracted.

I have heard that the servants were quite melted by his grief, and I do not doubt it in the least, for he was always celebrated for his skill in private theatricals. He was just retiring to vent his grief in his dressingroom, when he met my mother. It must, altogether, have been an awkward rencontre, and, indeed, for my father, a remarkably unfortunate occurrence; for Seymour Conway was immensely rich, and the damages would, no doubt, have been proportionately high. Had they met each other alone, the affair might easily have been settled, and Lady Frances gone off in tranquillity-those d―d servants are always in the way!

I have, however, often thought that it was better for me that the affair ended thus, as I know, from many instances, that it is frequently exceedingly inconvenient to have one's mother divorced. I have observed that the distinguishing trait of people accustomed to good society, is a calm, imperturbable quiet, which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least: they eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money, in quiet; while low persons cannot take up either a spoon or an affront without making such an amazing noise about it. To render this observation good, and to return to the intended elopement, nothing farther was said upon that event. My father introduced Conway to Brookes's, and invited him to dinner twice a week for a whole twelvemonth.

Not long after this occurrence, by the death of my grandfather, my uncle succeeded to the title and estates of the family. He was, as people justly observed, rather an odd man: built schools for peasants, forgave poachers, and diminished his farmer's rents; indeed, on account of these, and similar eccentricities, he was thought a fool by some, and a madman by others. However, he was not quite destitute of natural feeling, for he paid my father's debts, and established us in the secure enjoyment of our former splendour.

But this piece of generosity, or justice, was done in the most unhandsome manner: he obtained a promise from my father to retire from Brookes's, and relinquish the turf; and he prevailed upon my mother to take an aversion to diamonds, and an indifference to china monsters.

At ten years old I went to Eton. I had been educated till that period by my mother, who, being distantly related to Lord (who had published "Hints upon the Culinary Art"), imagined she possessed an hereditary claim to literary distinction. History was her great forte: for she had read all the historical romances of the day, and history accordingly I had been carefully taught.

I think at this moment I see my mother before me, reclining on her sofa, and repeating to me some story about Queen Elizabeth and Lord Essex; then telling me, in a languid voice, as she sank back with the exertion, of the blessing of a literary taste, and admonishing me never to read above half an hour at a time, for fear of losing my health.

Well, to Eton I went; and the second day I had been there I was half killed for refusing, with all the pride of a Pelham, to wash teacups. I was rescued from the clutches of my tyrant by a boy not much bigger than myself, but reckoned the best fighter for his size in the whole school. His name was Reginald Glanville: from that time we became inseparable, and our friendship lasted all the time he stayed at Eton, which was within a year of my own departure for Cambridge.

His father was a baronet, of a very ancient and wealthy family; and his mother was a woman of some talent, and more ambition. She made her house one of the most recherché in London. Seldom seen at large assemblies, she was eagerly sought after in the well-winnowed soirées of the elect. Her wealth, great as it was, seemed the least prominent ingredient of her establishment. There was in it no uncalled-for ostentation—no purseproud vulgarity—no cringing to great, and no patronizing condescension to little people: even the Sunday newspapers could not find fault with her, and the querulous wives of younger brothers could only sneer and be silent. "It is an excellent connection,” said my mother, when I told her of my friendship with Reginald Glanville, "and will be of more use to you than many of greater apparent consequence. Remember, my dear, that in all the friends you make at present, you look to the advantage you can derive from them hereafter; that is, what we call knowledge of the world, and it is to get knowledge of the world that you are sent to a public school.”

I think, however, to my shame, that notwithstanding my mother's instructions, no very prudential considerations were mingled with my friendship for Reginald Glanville. I loved him with a warmth of attachment which has since surprised even myself.

He was of a very singular character: he used to wander by the river in the bright days of summer, when all else were at play, without any companion but his own thoughts; and these were tinged, even at that early age, with a deep and impassioned melancholy. He was so reserved in his manner, that it was looked upon as coolness or pride, and was repaid as such by a pretty general dislike. Yet to those he loved, no one could be more open and warm; more watchful to gratify others, more indifferent to gratification himself: an utter absence of all selfishness, and in eager and active benevolence, were indeed the distinguishing traits of his character. I have seen him endure, with a careless good-nature, the

most provoking affronts from boys much less than himself; but directly I, or any other of his immediate friends, was injured or aggrieved, his anger was almost implacable. Although he was of a slight frame, yet early exercise had brought strength to his muscles and activity to his limbs; and his skill in all athletic exercises, whenever (which was but rarely) he deigned to share them, gave alike confidence and success to whatever enterprise his lion-like courage tempted him to dare.

Such, briefly and imperfectly sketched, was the character of Reginald Glanville-the one who, of all my early companions, differed the most from myself; yet the one whom I loved the most, and the one whose future destiny was the most intertwined with my own.

I was in the head class when I left Eton. As I was reckoned an uncommonly well-educated boy, it may not be ungratifying to the admirers of the present system of education to pause here for a moment, and recall what I then knew. I could make twenty Latin verses in half an hour; I could construe, without an English translation, all the easy Latin authors, and many of the difficult ones with it; I could read Greek fluently, and even translate it through the medium of a Latin version at the bottom of the page. I was thought exceedingly clever, for I had only been eight years acquiring all this fund of information, which, as no one can ever recall it in the world, you had every right to suppose that I had entirely forgotten before I was five-and-twenty. As I was never taught a syllable of English during this period; as when I once attempted to read Pope's Poems, out of school hours, I was laughed at, and called "a sap," as my mother, when I went to school, renounced her own instructions; and as, whatever schoolmasters may think to the contrary, one learns nothing now-a-days by inspiration: so of everything which relates to English literature English laws, and English history (with the exception of the story of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Essex), you have the same right to suppose that I was at the age of eighteen, when I left Eton, in the profoundes ignorance.

At this age I was transplanted to Cambridge, where I bloomed for two years in the blue and silver of a fellow-commoner of Trinity. At the end of that time (being of royal descent) I became entitled to an honorary degree. I suppose the term is in contradistinction to an honourable degree, which is obtained by pale men in spectacles and cotton stockings after thirty-six months of intense application.

I do not exactly remember how I spent my time at Cambridge. I had a pianoforte in my room, and a private billiard-room at a village two miles off; and between these resources I managed to improve my mind more than could reasonably have been expected. To say truth, the whole place reeked with vulgarity. The men drank beer by the gallon, and ate cheese by the hundredweight-wore jockey-cut coats, and talked slang -rode for wagers, and swore when they lost-smoked in your face, and expectorated on the floor. Their proudest glory was to drive the mailtheir mightiest exploit to box with the coachman-their most delicate amour to leer at the barmaid.

It will be believed that I felt little regret in quitting companions of this description. I went to take leave of our college tutor. "Mr. Pelham," said he, affectionately squeezing me by the hand," your conduct has been most exemplary; you have not walked wantonly over the college grass plats, nor set your dog at the proctor-nor driven tandems by day, nor broken lamps by night-nor entered the chapel, in order to display your intoxication-nor the lecture-room, in order to caricature the professors. This is the general behaviour of young men of family and fortune, but it has not been yours. Sir, you have been an honour to your college."

Thus closed my academical career. He who does not allow that it passed creditably to my teachers, profitably to myself, and beneficially to the world, is a narrow-minded and illiterate man, who knows nothing of the advantages of modern education.

ON ILL-HEALTH AND ITS CONSOLATIONS. ("MISCELLANEOUS PROSE WORKS.")

E do not enough consider our physical state as the cause of much of our moral-we do not reflect enough upon our outward selves. What changes have been produced in our minds by some external cause--an accident, an illness! For instance, a general state of physical debility. Ill-health, in the ordinary phrase, is perhaps among the most interesting subjects whereon to moralize. It is not, like most topics that are dedicated to philosophy, refining and abstruse; it is not a closet thesis-it does not touch one man, and avoid the circle which surrounds him; it relates to us all-for ill-health is a part of death;-it is its grand commencement. Sooner or later, for a period longer or shorter, it is our common doom. Some, indeed, are stricken suddenly, and perceptible disease does not herald the dread comer; but such exceptions are not to be cited against the rule, and in this artificial existence, afflicted by the vices of custom-the unknown infirmities of our sires, the various ills that beset all men who think or toil— the straining nerve—the heated air-the overwrought or the stagnant life -the cares of poverty-the luxuries of wealth-the gnawings of our several passions,—the string cracks somewhere, and few of us pass even the first golden gates of life ere we receive the admonitions of decay. Every contingency to every man and every creature doth preach our funeral sermon, and calls us to look and see how the old sexton Time throws up the earth, and digs a grave where we must lay our sins or our

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sorrows.

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Life itself is but a long dying, and with every struggle against disease, we taste the grave and the solemnities of our own funerals.† Every day's

* Jeremy Taylor on "Holy Dying."

+ Ibid.