and more to put in execution the plan for the pedestrian expedition he had proposed, on which I was now impatient to set out, and named the day when I would first go home to communicate with my family.

"A parting observation," said he, " before you go. Reccollect you will, according to this scheme, have little to do with the upper ranks; and in what you may call this abasement, you must count upon some mortifications. These you must laugh at, or give up the undertaking. At any rate, you have only to imagine yourself (indeed it will be only true, and a great deal more romantic, and therefore more to your taste) a gentleman in disguise. Only recollect that, however you travel, every little incident that occurs may, with proper powers of mind, be turned to account."

I quite fell in with these suggestions, and was almost as eager for my first sally as Don Quixote.

I went home to Bardolfe to announce my intention, and my father did not oppose it, especially when he heard it was by Fothergill's recommendation. My brothers, indeed, thought it a queer thing for "t'young doctor to set off after a Willywith-a-wisp," as they called it, with no object of business, and nothing to see but the same creatures as our own market town supplied nearer home. But as I could afford to pay my way, they agreed I had a right to please myself.

So, after a few days' visit to my family at the commencement of the long vacation, I returned to Oxford to equip myself for my expedition, which I meant to direct southward through the neighboring counties, Here my adventures furnish very different scenes from those I have reported, and some of them, as will be seen, led to most important changes in my prospects, as well as my ultimate fate.

CHAPTER X.

I START ON A TOUR OF OBSERVATION.

-

THE FEELINGS OF

A YOUTH ABOUT TO VIEW THE WORLD.

This morning, like the spirit of a youth
That means to be of note, begins by times.

SHAKSPEARE.—Antony & Cleopatra.

It was not five o'clock in the morning, in the first week in August, when I started from my cell in the old quadrangle of the venerable Maudlin, to commence my novel excursion. In my way, passing Queen's, I beheld my old friend the porter already opening his gates, and preparing to wash them, for he was proud of, and loved them seemingly with a lover's fondness. Hence let none of us suppose that there are no interests (and exciting ones too) except among great ones. The porter of Queen's was as eagerly occupied in furbishing up his gates, as the duchess of Q. in cleaning her diamonds. Perhaps his pride in them was the least selfish, and therefore the more respectable of the two.

This earliest of my academical friends had always treated me with great respect, which was not a little increased by my election to Maudlin, a demy of which he considered as the high road to a fellowship, the acme, in his eyes (with the sole exception of the head of a house), of all earthly dignity.

What was my old friend's wonder, when he saw the equipments for my pedestrian journey—a small knapsack strapt to my shoulders, a short coat with many pockets, and, for convenience in walking, denuded of skirts. Trowsers, halfgaiters, and thick shoes (which, in those days of buckskin. breeches, cordovan boots and pumps, were by no means condescended to by the Oxford dandies, among whom by the porter at least, I had been reckoned), completed my appearance. Thus equipped, with about thirty guineas in my pocket, and staff in hand, like an old patriarch (I mean in regard to the staff, not the guineas), I was proceeding on my

way.

The janitor who knew nothing of romance, or that I was

so well furnished, beheld me with consternation; and when he learned that I was quitting Oxford for the vacation, I saw he suspected me of poverty, nor could my assurances that I walked for pleasure undeceive him. I am afraid, notwithstanding my own romance, I was fool enough to be annoyed at this, and glad not only that the various colleges had been emptied of their inhabitants by the vacation, but that the few who remained were wrapt in sleep. I had, in fact, at first thought of going in a gig, in order not to disparage the demy of Maudlin by the appearance of a tramper. But I grew ashamed of the feeling, and rallied like a brave fellow, resolved to defy prejudice; though even the honest porter, I thought, touched his hat less reverently than usual; but such is the world!

set out.

Be that as it will, I never felt in better spirits than when I The prospect before me was one of hope, of adventure; and hope, as Lord Bacon says, is a good breakfast though a bad supper; but be it noted, I was then twenty years old, and thought only of breakfast. Fothergill's prognostics, too, in regard to Lord Castleton, still tingled in my ears; and meanwhile, to use his words, it was holiday time, and I was to see a little of the world with my own eyes, instead of those of the book-men. What could be more taking to a sanguine youth, who thought that world all his own?

The weather, too (no small ingredient in a scheme of happiness), was opportunely propitious; nay, it seemed bespoke. It had rained in the night, not in torrents, that sweep and lash the plains, but in mild and gentle showers, just sufficient to cool the earth, and by their genial moisture to wake every thing into freshness. Sweet indeed was this breath of morn; for the ineadows were full of butter cups, the grass emitted perfume, the hedges and their wild-flowers breathed fragrance, and the birds sang paans. Could a young collegian fail to think of his Virgil ?

"Lucifero primo cum sidere frigida rura

Carpamus, dum mane novum, dum gramina canent,
Et ros in tenera pecori gratissimus herba est."

Before the sun when Hesperus appears,

First let them sip from herbs the pearly tears

Of morning dews, then let them break their fast,

On greensward ground, a cool and grateful taste.—DRYDEN.

I thought, too, of something almost still more beautiful, from its simplicity:

"Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages; let us go up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth."*

I doubt if the fine people of the world, who live upon excitement, and sicken at the very name of quiet, will agree with me; but setting its concomitant sentiment aside, I know not a sensual pleasure equal to the vivifying return of life to fields and gardens after showers. Every plant seems restored, every tree looks grateful, as if it had a soul, and thought, and felt, and thanked the giver.

Could the real soul of man not respoud to this, or not confess the benign influence of that Deity who is present, as it were, within him, on contemplating such a scene?

With this seeling, bursting into soliloquy, I exclaimed, "The morning breathes, and cometh on with new gladness. Arise, fair morning, and bring on the day, that every living thing may wake and praise the Lord."

The sentiment recalled a similar one, only dressed in more poetry, which those who will not laugh at the above apostrophe may perhaps forgive me if I transcribe.

"Only the wakeful lark† had left her nest; and was mounted on high to salute the opening day. Elevated in air, she seemed to call the husbandman to his toil, and all her fellow-songsters to their notes. Earliest of birds,' said I, 'companion of the dawn, may I always rise at thy voice! Rise to offer the matin song, and adore that Being who maketh the outgoings of the morning and evening to praise him.' How charming to rove abroad at this sweet hour of prime! To enjoy the calm of nature; to tread the dewy lawns, and taste the unrifled freshness of the air !”

Many perhaps will think this an ebullition of Rousseau. It is at least very like him. Let them not laugh when I tell them it belongs to a country parson, as opposed to Rousseau as light to darkness; save that both were men of genius, and Hervey as great an admirer of nature, with a hundred times. his virtue, as Rousseau himself,

* Canticle 7, 12.

The light-enamoured bird.

Well, my tour was commenced, and I may say, perhaps without self-flattery, that I was not the last man in the world to be sent upon such an expedition. My health was restored, and I feft stronger than I had been in the earlier parts of my life. My heart, too, though I had not drunk too copiously of Lethe, was tolerably at rest. Without at all extinguishing that romance, without which no pleasure of the imagination (which a tour always is) can hold for a day, I really longed to behold more of the moral as well as natural world. Perhaps I hoped in time to imitate Fothergill in this. I certainly was not ashamed of the hope.

But, exclusive of this, I had notions of mental pleasure to be drawn from a tour, or journey, which, if not peculiar to myself, were certainly not belonging to every traveller. I was not like a certain great earl, notorious for his causticity, who made the tour of Europe in his carriage without once allowing its back to be touched by his.*

My brothers' notion of my hunting a Will-with-a-wisp was not absolutely incorrect; for, with liberty thus all before me, I felt any thing but disposed to confine myself to the beaten track. Once the silly shame of my knapsack conquered, independence seemed inclosed in it with my shirts and stockings, for I had not any thing else, not even the black silk breeches of Sterne, which stood him in such stead with the Piedimontese lady, in his journey over Mount Taurira.†

Accordingly, I resolved that no consideration, either of time or place, should prevent the indulgence of any object, or even any whim I might propose to myself, and that I would follow my fancy wherever it led me. One pleasure indeed of a journey (I should say its greatest) is, to give the fullest play to the imagination. For with that, every fine prospectevery gentleman's seat, with its avenue or park-and, in the same manner, every snug box, farm, or hermitage, becomes our own. A garden of flowers, or bees, brings Virgil before us; a flock of goats among rocks, Horace.

But if a castle appear in the distance, with its donjon keep, its towers, and labelled windows; its mullions and corbels ; Kenilworth or Ashby, Plessis des Tours or Inverary, rise to

See the last and most amusing chapter of the "Sentimental Jour

ney."