TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, FORTY YEARS AGO. Ir was a lovely morning; a remittance had arrived in the very nick of time; my two horses were in excellent condition; and I resolved, with a College chum, to put in execution a long concerted scheme of driving to London, Tandem. We sent our horses forward, got others at Cambridge, and tossing algebra and Anacharsis "to the dogs," started in high spirits.-We ran up to London in style went ball-pitch to the play-and after a quiet breakfast at the St. James's, set out with my own horses upon a dashing drive through the west end of the town. We were turning down the Haymarket, when whom, to my utter horror and consternation, should I see crossing to meet us, but my old warmhearted, but severe and peppery, uncle, Sir Thomas - -?

To escape was impossible.-A cart before, and two carriages behind, made us stationary; and I mentally resigned all idea of ever succeeding to his five thousand per annum. Up he came. "What! can I believe my eyes? George? what the do you do here? Tandem too, by

-" (I leave blanks for the significant accompaniments which dropped from his mouth, like pearls and rubies in the fairy tale, when he was in a passion.) "I have it," thought I, as an idea crossed my mind which I resolved to follow. I looked right and left, as if it was not possible it could be me he was addressing.-"What! you don't know me, you young dog? don't know your own uncle? Why, Sir, in the name of common sense-Pshaw! you've done with that. Why in name an't you at Cambridge?" "At Cambridge, sir?" said I. "At Cambridge, sir," he repeated, mimicking my affected astonishment; why, I suppose you never were at Cambridge! Oh! you young spendthrift; is this the manner you dispose of my allowance? Is this the way you read hard? You young profligate! you young-you”— Seeing he was getting energetic, I began to be apprehensive of a scene; and resolved to drop the curtain at once. "Really, sir," said I, with as brazen a look as I could summon upon emergency, "I have not the honour of your acquaintance"-His large eyes assumed a fixed stare of astonishment-"I must confess you have the advantage of me. Excuse me, but, to my knowledge, I never saw you before."-A torrent, I perceived, was coming." Make no apologies, they are unnecessary. Your next rencontre will, I hope, be more fortunate; though your finding your country cousin in London is like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay.-Bye bye, old buck." The cart was removed, and I drove off; yet not without seeing him, in a paroxysm of rage half frightful half ludicrous, toss his hat on the ground, and hearing him exclaim-" He disowns me! the jackanapes! disowns his own uncle, by

Poor Philip Chichester's look of amazement at this finished stroke of impudence is present, at this instant, to my memory. I think I see his face, which at no period had more expression than a turnip, assume that air of a pensive simpleton, d'un mouton qui rêve, which he so often and so successfully exhibited over an incomprehensible problem in "Principia." "Well! you've done it.-Dished completely. What could induce you to be such a blockhead?" said he. The family of the Blockheads, my dear Phil," I replied, " is far too creditably established in society to render their alliance disgraceful.

I'm proud to

belong to so prevailing a party." " Pshaw! this is no time for joking. What's to be done?" "Why, when does a man want a joke, Phil, but when he's in trouble? However, adieu to badinage, and hey for Cambridge instantly." "Cambridge?" "In the twinkling of an eye--not a moment to be lost. My uncle will post there with four horses instantly; and my only chance of avoiding that romantic misfortune of being cut off with a shilling, is to be there before him."

Without settling our bill at the inn, or making a single arrangement, we dashed back to Cambridge. Never shall I forget the mental anxiety. I endured on my way there. Every thing was against us. A heavy rain had fallen in the night, and the roads were wretched. The traces broke-turnpike gates were shut-droves of sheep and carts impeded our progress;-but in spite of all these obtacles, we reached the college in less than six hours. "Has Sir Thomas been here?"

said I to the porter with an agitation I could not conceal. "No, sir." Phil" thanked God, and took courage." "If he does, tell him so and so," said I, giving veracious Thomas his instructions, and putting a guinea into his hand to sharpen his memory. Phil, my dear fellow, don't shew your face out of college for this fortnight. You twig! God bless you." "-1 had barely time to get to my own room, to have my toga and trencher beside me, Newton and Aristotle before me, optics, mechanics, and hydrostatics, strewed around in learned confusion, when my uncle drove up to the gate.

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"Porter, I wish to see Mr.," said he ; is he in his rooms ?" "Yes, sir; I saw him take a heap of books there ten minutes ago." This was not the first bouncer the Essence of Truth, as Thomas was known through college, had told for me; nor the last he got well paid for. Ay! very likely. Reads very hard, I dare say?" No doubt of that, I believe, Sir," said Thomas, as bold as brass," You audacious fellow! how dare you look in my face and tell me such a deliberate falsehood? You know he's not in college!" "Not in college! sir, as I hope" "None of your hopes or fears to me. Shew me his rooms. -If two hours ago I did not see- See him, yes, I've seen

him, and he's seen the last of me."

He had now reached my rooms; and never shall I forget his look of astonishment, of amazement bordering on incredulity, when I calmly came forward, took his hand, and welcomed him to Cambridge. "My dear Sir, how are you? What lucky wind has blown you here?" "What, George! who-what-why-I can't believe my eyes!" "How happy I am to see you!" I continued; "How kind of you to come! How well you're looking!"-"How people may be deceived! My dear George, (speaking rapidly,) I met a fellow, in a tandem, in the Haymarket, so like you, in every particular, that I hailed him at once. The puppy disowned me-affected to cut a joke-and drove off. Never was I more taken off my stilts! I came down directly, with four post-horses, to tell your Tutor; to tell the Master; to tell all the College, that I would have nothing more to do with you; that I would be responsible for your debts no longer; to inclose you fifty pounds, and disown you for ever."-" My dear Sir, how singular!"

Singular! I wonder at perjury no longer, for my part. I would have gone into any court of justice, and have taken my oath it was you. I never saw such a likeness. Your father and the fellow's

mother were acquainted, or I'm mistaken. The air, the height, the voice; all but the manner, and damme, that was not yours. No-no, you never would have treated your old uncle so."-" How rejoiced I am, that” "Rejoiced! so am I. I would not but have been undeceived for a thousand guineas. Nothing but seeing you here so quiet, so studious, surrounded by problems, would have convinced me. Ecod! I can't tell you how I was startled. I had been told some queer stories, to be sure, about your Cambridge etiquette. I heard that two Cambridge men, one of St. John's, the other of Trinity, had met on the top of Vesuvius, and that though they knew each other by sight and reputation, yet never having been formally introduced, like two simpletons they looked at each other in silence, and left the mountain separately and without speaking;-and that cracked fellowcommoner, Meadows, had shewn me a caricature, taken from the life, representing a Cambridge man drowning, and another gownsman standing on the brink, exclaiming, Oh! that I had had the honour of being introduced to that man, that I might have taken the liberty of saving him!' But, it, thought I, he never would carry it so far with his own uncle!-I never heard your father was a gay man," continued he, musing; yet, as you sit in that light, the likeness isI moved instantly-" But it's impossible, you know, it's impossible. Come, my dear fellow, come; I must get some dinner. Who could he be? Never were two people so alike!"

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We dined at the inn, and spent the evening together; and instead of the fifty, the" last fifty," he generously gave me a draft for three times the amount. He left Cambridge the next morning, and his last words were, as he entered his carriage, "My brother was a handsome man; and there was a Lady Somebody, who, the world said, was partial to him. She may have a son. Most surprising likeness. God bless you! Read hard, you young dog; remember. Like as two brothers!" 1 never saw him again.

His death, which happened a few months afterwards, in consequence of his being bit in a bet, contracted when he was a "little elevated," left me the heir to his fine estate; I wish I could add, to his many and noble virtues. I do not attempt to palliate deception. It is always criminal. But, I am sure, no severity, no reprimand, no reproaches, would have had half the effect which his kindness, his confidence, and his generosity wrought on me. It reformed me thoroughly, and at once. I did not see London again till I had graduated: and if my degree was unaccompanied by brilliant honours, it did not disgrace my Uncle's liberality or his name. Many years have elapsed since our last interview; but I never reflect on it without pain and pleasure— pain, that our last intercourse on earth should have been marked by the grossest deception; and pleasure, that the serious reflections it awakened cured me for ever of all wish to deceive, and made the open and straightforward path of life, that of

AN OLD STUDENT.

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PORTRAIT OF A SEPTUAGENARY.*

1 * ་

I HAVE recorded the pleasure of being a father; candour obliges me to mention some of its annoyances. My son grew up with a decided predilection for that profession which I have ever held in deep abhorrence-the Army. Habituated, as I have said, to look at men and actions in the abstract and elemental, I could not see why gold lace and feathers, and scarlet cloth and music, should so dazzle and stun me to all perceptions of right and wrong, as to make me respect the man who would hire himself as a trader in blood. Such persons, I may be told, are necessary; but I should be sorry to see my son in the occupation. The Army will excuse me :--they have the admiration of a thoughtless world, and may well despise the crazy notions of a fantastical old man, who cannot see any power of absolution either in a Pope or a gold epaulette. My youngster was reasoned out of this boyish hankering; but, alas! his second choice still was uncongenial with my wishes, for he now selected the Bar. My notions, I am aware, are absurd, unreasonable, preposterous; but that I might venerate at least one individual of this profession, I have been all my life looking for the advent of some conscientious barrister, who should scrupulously refuse a brief, unless the cause of his client at least wore the appearance of honesty and justice; who should exert his skill and eloquence in redressing the injured, and releasing the unwary from the traps and fetters of the law, while he left knaves and robbers to its merited inflictions. How can I respect a being, the confidant, perhaps, of malefactors, who will torture his ingenuity, and wrest the statute-book, to screen them from punishment and turn them loose upon society for fresh offences

who will hire out his talents to overreach the innocent, to defraud the orphan, to impoverish the widow ?-who with a counterfeit earnestness, will lay his hand upon his heart, and make solemn asseverations, every one of which he knows to be false; and for another two or three guineas, will on the same day take the opposite side, and with the same vehemence maintain facts and reasonings diametrically the reverse? It must be as difficult to render this practice consistent with a manly candour and honourable sense of the importance of truth, as to prevent the system of quibbling, chicanery, and hair-splitting from being destructive of all enlarged and comprehensive views. We all know there are exceptions, but in the aggregate I am afraid, moreover, that the "honourable profession" is not so independent as could be wished. They sell themselves in retail to their clients, and by wholesale to government whenever the minister has a mind to bait a trap for rats. -Worldly ideas of the gentility of a profession, or the chances of advancement in it, blinded me not. Perhaps I did not render sufficient homage to the necessary modifications of society-by raising my views to the contemplation of man in his elements I overlooked his accidents, and all the paltry distinctions of human institution. A man of honour or talent has always been welcome to my hand and my table, and I have felt no horrors if he were of a vulgar trade, or even wore a shabby coat. Far from seeking birth and rank, I have been rather prejudiced against their possessors, deeming it difficult for such persons to over

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come the seductions of their education. The spoilt children of Fortune, like those of the nursery, are apt to be very empty, very arrogant, and very offensive.-No:-I would neither have my son live upon the blood and misery, nor upon the vices and follies of his species. I would neither have him fawn upon a general, nor truckle to a judge, nor feast a lawyer. I made him a farmer, that most ancient and honourable of all professions. I made him independent of all the world, and bidding him look only to the universal mother, Earth, who, like the maternal pelican, feeds her offspring from her torn bosom, I taught him to support himself by ministering to the comfort, enjoyment, and support of others. Of the pressure to which agriculturists have been subjected he has cheerfully borne his portion :-he is not rich, but he is virtuous, he is happy, and above all, he is independent.

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The holy vessel of the Athenians, during a course of seven hundred years, had been so often rebuilt, that some of their sophists maintained it was no longer the same ship, and frequently used it as an illustration in discussing the question of personal identity. I myself, both in body and mind, had undergone such a total replacement of feelings and ideas in my little existence of threescore years, that I was inclined to think myself a different personage altogether from the short-sighted youth, who considered forty as a grave paternal age, and connected sixty with nothing but ideas of decrepitude and decay. I remember when I thought that the consciousness of getting old and approaching the edge of the dread abyss, must, at the former age, begin to dim the sunshine of existence, and at the latter be sufficient to overcloud and darken all its enjoyments. These spectres of fancy vanished as I came near them. At forty I set myself down for a young man: and finding myself at sixty hale, hearty, and happy, able to dig in my garden, enjoy literature and the arts, and cultivate the Muse with a keener relish of existence than ever, I settled in my own mind that this was the real meridian and zenith of human life. Children, when first they ride in a carriage, imagine that the trees and houses are moving on while they are stationary; and in like manner I could see plainly enough the ravages of time upon my contemporaries, and observe that they were getting on, while I myself seemed to have been standing still, and at some loss to account for all my old friends running a-head of me. This is another illustration of that benignant provision of nature, which will not suffer even our self-love to be wounded, and equalises the happiness of life's various stages, by making even the foibles of age minister to its enjoyments. Whether or not this happy self-delusion retained its power at a more advanced period will be seen as I proceed to that portion of my life which extends

The over-weening and somewhat triumphant estimate which I had formed of my three-score meridian was slightly checked, by my hearing one friend whisper to another at a dinner-party-"Old W- begins to twaddle; he has told us that story half a dozen times lately." Old W! that amen "stuck in my throat;" it threatened my zenith, and savoured of the Azimuth. Sir times too! I protest it was but three, but that I confess was twice too much. My memory certainly had lost a portion of its tenacity; and unless I could retain impressions