of injuftice in it, as it was impoffible for me to learn a book I was never allowed to open: in this period of my education I took little food and lefs fleep, fo that, whilft I fhot up in ftature after the manner of my progenitors, who were a tall race of men, I grew as gaunt as a greyhound, but having abundantly more fpirit than ftrength, and being voted by the great boys to to be what is called True game, I was fingled out as a kind of trial-cock, and pitted against every new comer to make proof of his bottom in fair fighting, though I may fafely fay I never turned out upon a quarrel of my own making in all my life. Notwithstanding all these honours, which I obtained from my colleagues, I will not attempt to disguise from you that I left the school in difgrace, being expelled by the mafter, when head of my boarding house, for not supporting my authority over the petty boys belonging to it, who I must confess were juft then not in the most orderly and correct state of difcipline.

My father, whose maxim it was never to let trifles vex him, received me with all the good humour in life, and admitted me of the univerfity of Oxford: here I was overjoyed to find that the affair of the expulfion was fo far from VOL. V.

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having. prejudiced my contemporaries against me, that I was reforted to by numbers, whofe time hung upon their hands, and my rooms became the rendezvous of all the loungers in the college: few or no schemes were set on foot without me, and if a loose guinea or two was wanted for the purpose, every body knew where to have it: I was allowed a horse for my health's fake, which was rather delicate, but I cannot fay my health was much the better for him, as I never mounted his back above once or twice, whilft my friends kept him in exercise morning and evening, as long as he lasted, which indeed was only till the hunting season set in, when the currier had his hide, and his flesh went to the kennel. I muft own I did not excel in any of my academical exercises, save that of circumambulating the colleges and public buildings with ftrangers, who came to gaze about them for curiofity's fake; in this branch of learning I gained fuch general reputation as to be honoured with the title of Keeper of the Lions: neither will I difguife the frequent jobations I incurred for neglect of college duties, and particu larly for non-attendance at chapel, but in this I fhould not perhaps have been thought so repre henfible

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henfible, had it been known that my furplice never failed to be there, though I had rarely the credit of bearing it company.

My mother died of a cold fhe caught by attending fome young ladies on a water-party before I had been a month in the world; and my father never married again, having promised her on her death-bed not to bring a stepdame into his family, whilft I furvived: I had the misfortune to lose him when I was in my twenty-second year; he got his death at a country canvas for Sir Harry Ofier, a very obliging gentleman and nearly related to our family: I attended my father's corpfe to the grave, on which melancholy occafion fuch were the lamentations and bewailings of all the fervants in the house, that I thought it but a proper return for their affection to his memory to prove myself as kind a master by continuing them in their feveral employs: this however was not altogether what they meant, as I was foon convinced every one amongst them had a remonftrance to make and a new demand to prefer: the butler would have better perquifites, the footman wanted to be out of livery, the fcullion demanded tea-money, and the cook murmured about kitchen-stuff.

Though I was now a fingle being in the world, my friends and neighbours kindly took care I fhould not be a folitary one; I was young indeed and of fmall experience in the world, but I had plenty of counsellors: fome advifed me to buy horfes they wanted to fell, others to fell horfes they wanted to buy: a lady of great tafte fell in love with two or three of my best cows for their colour; they were upon her lawn the next day: a gentleman of extraordinary virtù discovered a picture or two in my collection, that exactly fitted his pannels: an eminent improver, whom every body declared to be the first genius of the age for laying out grounds, had taken measures for tranfporting my garden a mile out of my fight, and floating my richeft meadow grounds with a lake of muddy water: as for my manfion and its appendages I am perfuaded I could never have kept them in their places, had it not been that the feveral projectors, who all united in pulling them down, could never rightly agree in what particular spot to build them up again: one kind friend compli mented me with the first refufal of a mistrefs, whom for reasons of economy he was obliged to part from; and a neighbouring gentlewoman, whofe daughter had perhaps ftuck on hand a

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little longer than was convenient, more than hinted to me that Mifs had every requifite in life to make the married ftate perfectly happy,

In justice however to my own difcretion let me fay that I was not haftily furprized into a ferious measure by this latter overture, nor did I ask the young lady's hand in marriage till I was verily perfuaded by her exceffive fondness that there were no other means to fave her life. Now whether it was the violence of her paffion before our marriage, that gave fome shock to her intellects, or from what other cause it might proceed I know not, certain however it is, that after marriage he became fubject to very odd whims and caprices, and though I made it a point of humanity never to thwart her in these humours, yet I was feldom fortunate enough to please her; fo that, had I not been fure to demonstration that love for me was the cause and origin of them all, I might have been fo deceived by appearances as to have imputed them to averfion. She was in the habit of deciding upon almost every action in her life by the interpretation of her dreams, in which I cannot doubt her great skill, though I could not always comprehend the principles, on which the applied it; fhe never failed, as foon as winter fet in, to dream

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