excruciating pang, caused by a sharp wire passed round my toe, and pulled tightly by means of a string affixed. This was a prevailing mode of amusement among the great boys, who would very often get three, or four, or more long strings fastened to sharp wires, which wires they would tie round the great toes of as many little, sleeping boys'; then they would retire into the middle of the room, and violently pull the strings, which occasioning excessively sharp pain, would make the sufferers cry out in agony, while these humane lads would amuse themselves with marking the different notes of exclamation, and with imitating the action and the sounds of a stage coachman driving his horses."

ESSAY XX.

NARRATIYE CONTINUED..

"THE only difference on other days was, that on Tuesdays and Thursdays my exertions were more laborious, inasmuch as I

was then unable, even to obtain that degree of rest which resulted from my sitting during the time our form was up at lesson. The hill was a mile and a half from the college, and all this way I had often to carry cricket bats, or a foot ball, or lead a dog in a string, or carry some boots and spurs for those highmettled blades who chose to ride during the three hours we were out on the hill, &c. When on the hill I had sometimes to cut turf, which I was to bear home on my head, in order to lay in the bowers which some foolish præfect took a fancy to have made in the college meadow. The remainder of the day was generally spent in being shagged about, in fasting, in being beaten, and being exposed to all the vicissitudes of weather without any covering for the head, for we were not allowed to wear hats. On Fridays and Saturdays, and, still more, on Sundays, I was somewhat better off, because I had often an opportunity of sleeping a little in the chapel and cathedral; though even this indulgence was not without its peril, because, whenever I was seen to nod, by either præfect or master, I was certain

of a sound beating and severe flogging. This was the mode of existence I was compelled to drag on, day after day, and week after week, and month after month. Time, the great blunting-stone of all our griefs, served to render my situation less insupportable; some vacancies happened, and I had a few juniors; I was inured to the lash, and my body had become hardened; I was sunk in vice, and my mind was rendered callous; yet I well remember that I derived much comfort at this period from the recollection of these lines in Milton:

I laugh when those, who at the spear are bold • And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear • What yet they know must follow, to endure • Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain, • The sentence of their conqueror: this is now Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear, Our supreme foe, in time, may much remit His anger, and, perhaps, thus far remov'd • Not mind us not offending, satisfied.

With what is punished; whence these raging fires • Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames. Our purer essence, then, will overcome • Their noxious vapour; or, inur'd, not feel; "Or chang'd at length, and to the place conform'd

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain;

• This horror will grow mild, this darkness light; Besides what hope the never ending flight

Offuture days may bring, what chance, what change • Worth waiting, since our present lot appears

For happy, though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe.'

What notions I entertained of these lines, or what led me to think of them, I know not; but they certainly afforded me great satisfaction; the recitation of them served to deaden, and, for a while, stifle the pangs I felt from my forlorn condition, till I awoke again to the agonies of reality. I also compared my present situation with that under my first petty tyrant, and, though the hardships I now endured were much more grievous, yet I preferred it, because my pride was gratified to think, that I had escaped from the hands of a barbarian, whom I hated and despised; that I was become a member of which affected to look down with contempt on every other seminary of education, and particularly that petty, rascally academy, which I had not

long before left; and because I looked forward to the time, though remote, when I should be a præfect, and enjoy uncontrolled dominion over a set of slaves, as abject and spiritless as myself now was. But, when I turned my thoughts towards home, and compared the wide difference between living there, and being tortured at..........., ' my heart died within me, I felt it die.' I would most willingly have agreed always to undergo the most irksome circumstances which had ever attended my domestic career, rather than stay where I was. I thought that even the frowns and reproofs of home were infinitely preferable to the smiles and sunshine, if any smiles and sunshine could there exist, of I particularly dwelt on one circumstance, which I shall detail at length, because it conveys a good picture of the state of my mind at that time; it was the moment of the greatest disgrace and displeasure that I had ever experienced at home; and yet I imagined, that I should be much happier even under such a cloud, than I could ever be as a foster-child of My father was in