42 THE RIVALS. 



Sir Egerton Brydges, beyond that of giving a single one. Sir Eger- 

 ton has not only written more sonnets than all the other poets of the 

 present day, but many of them are among the best pieces of verse 

 which ever appeared in the fourteen-line form. Mr. Wordsworth 

 himself points out some of Sir Egerton's sonnets as not only the best 

 of the present day, but the best to be found in the English language. 

 The omission therefore on the part of Mr. Housman of all mention of 

 Sir Egerton as a writer of sonnets, beyond the slight one we have 

 noticed, is to us altogether unaccountable. It is a sin, moreover, 

 which we deem unpardonable. 



THE RIVALS. 



DURING the last three years I spent at school two of my class-fel- 

 lows and I cherished a very warm attachment to each other. In 

 almost all our hours of relaxation from study we contrived to associate 

 together, and always, in short, regretted the existence of those cir- 

 cumstances which imposed on us the necessity of even the most tem- 

 porary separation. It was so ordered, however, in the oft-times ar- 

 bitrary appointments of Fate, that I was to be at last parted from 

 my two young friends for a long period, i'f not for ever. By this 

 time I had received all the education which the comparatively limited 

 finances of my parents could afford to give me, and an excellent si- 

 tuation being offered me in a foreign clime, I signified my accept- 

 ance of it ; and, after doing the utmost violence to all the feelings and 

 susceptibilities of my heart, I tore myself from the clinging em- 

 braces of my friends abandoned the endeared scenes of my earlier 

 years and all my past happiness, and repaired to a distant land, where 

 I knew no individual and was known to no one. 



At this eventful and trying period of my life I was in my eighteenth 

 year ; and even so early as this I was not altogether unacquainted 

 with the workings of what is emphatically designated the tender 

 passion. There was one of the other sex a young girl whose per- 

 sonal attractions were only rivalled by her intellectual accomplish- 

 ments and virtuous dispositions who had made a deep and abiding 

 impression on my heart. She was the daughter of a respectable 

 farmer in the neighbourhood of the village of Ardmore, in the west 

 of Scotland the place in which my parents and those of rny two 

 schoolfellows already referred to resided. The latter were as inti- 

 mately acquainted with Matilda Gordon (such was her name) as my- 

 self; but I had not the remotest idea at that time would that I had 

 never been apprised of the fact ! that either of them had ever felt 

 towards her any other emotion than that of esteem, an emotion with 

 which all must have regarded her who had an opportunity of observ- 

 ing the amiable qualities she possessed. 



Such was the sincerity and ardency of my affection for this inter- 

 esting young girl that but for the dependent nature of the situation 

 for which I was about to depart, I would, even at that early period 

 of my life, have made proposals of marriage to her. As it would, 



