CAMBRIDGE 63 



a tame monkey ! So the Count throve and prospered 

 for a while. But a lady resident in the neighbourhood 

 who had been connected in her youth with one of 

 the German Courts, and who studied the Almanach 

 de Gotha and the like, insisted that the Count's claims 

 to the title were totally unfounded. So a small 

 warfare raged. In the meantime the Count won the 

 affections of a simple girl, the orphan child of a 

 somewhat wealthy "statesman," that is what we 

 should call a yeoman farmer. He married her, and 

 afterwards ran away with as much of her money as 

 he could get hold of, leaving her with the questionable 

 title of Countess as her only consolation. This finale 

 occurred after I had left. 



I grieve deeply that I knew little at that time 

 of the Lake Poets, except Byron's lines on the 

 correct poetical creed 



"Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; 

 Thou shalt not trust in Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey. . . ." 



In consequence, I made no effort to obtain the 

 honour of seeing and possibly receiving some slight 

 introduction to any one of its then living members. 

 Neither did I ever see Dr. Arnold, though I walked 

 with Strickland, one of our reading party and a 

 former pupil of his, as far as his door, which he 

 entered to spend half an hour with him, while I 

 waited and envied. 



Strickland was the son of a well-known Yorkshire 

 baronet. He joined me in many pleasant walks from 

 London after my college days, of which I especially 

 recollect one in the then rural Isle of Wight, when 

 there was little more than a single house at Shanklin, 



