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TOM RAFFLES. 



THOMAS, or, as he was more familiarly called, Tom Raffles, was the 

 only son of a planter in Jamaica. When about eight years old he 

 was sent over to be educated in England, having, at that time, every 

 prospect of succeeding to no inconsiderable wealth. The depre- 

 ciation, however, of West Indian property so far affected his father's 

 condition, that, on the estate being realized at his decease, Tom was 

 left with the comparatively trifling inheritance of six thousand pounds. 

 The gentleman, to whose care he had been consigned, and who was 

 finally saddled with his guardianship, in the exercise of his discre- 

 tion destined him for the church, as a calling in which his slender 

 patrimony might be most favourably invested ; and, in the prose- 

 cution of this matter-of-business arrangement, Tom, at the proper 

 age, came into residence at the college to which I belonged. 



Of all the young men whom I ever met, there was none whose oc- 

 casional company gave me more delight than that of Tom Raffles. 

 There was a great difference in our years, and a still greater in our 

 habits ; but there was so much harmless merriment, combined with 

 so much honourable feeling, in his disposition, that I always found 

 an agreeable relaxation in his society. Though no wit, he was a wag 

 in his way ; but so playful and pleasing withal, that surliness herself 

 would laugh in her vexation under the feather-like touches of his 

 banter. Practical jokes he loved, as a country wench loves dancing ; 

 but then they were so innocently ludicrous, and he blundered in 

 their execution so naturally, that even academic authority was in 

 jeopardy of a buccinatory affection, while pronouncing sentence upon 

 the enormities of his fun. If craniology be true, his cap, I imagine, 

 could hardly have covered his organ of good-fellowship. He was 

 social to a fault ; and with the young men of his own age he was a 

 favourite, whose absence created an adjournment of all enjoyment. 

 It is no wonder, therefore, that his acquaintance was numerous, and, 

 considering the facilities to extravagance in such a place, that it was 

 expensive. But an anecdote will give a better display of his cha- 

 racter, than any sketch I am capable of drawing. 



Tom loved milk punch ; and he could never endure spending his 

 evening i. e. from nine to two alone. Whenever it happened that 

 he was not engaged to a supper, or a round at loo, he invariably 

 hunted up some dozen, who were in the same miserable predicament 

 as himself, and pressed them for a spread and a beaker (which Tom 

 called a repetenda) of milk-punch at his own rooms. The jollity of 

 these parties, as they were the last resource against ennui, partook 

 rather of a furious character so much so, that every man within the 

 walls could tell, without inquiry, when Tom had his " forlorn hope" 

 about him. The master especially had acquired a painful perception 

 of such events ; for Tom's rooms were contiguous to the lodge, his 

 sitting-room and bed-room both looking backwards into a little pad- 

 dock, where the worthy doctor kept a cow, and an intolerable family 



M.M. No. 106. 3 K 



