1829.] [ 463. ] 
; THREE YEARS AT CAMBRIDGE. 
- Towarps the close of the year 1819, I left R——g school for Cambridge. 
There is a wild, buoyant feeling of independence, a strange mixture of 
sadness and enthusiasm, that alternately sways the mind at the idea of 
thus throwing off for ever the trammels of scholastic bigotry, and putting 
on instead the toga virilis of manhood. While we are at school—it is 
useless to mince the matter—we are, in every sense of the word, 
children, with whom ladies may venture to be familiar before com- 
pany; superannuated nurses to visit and salute by some old nur- 
sery abridgement, that adds any thing but grace or dignity to our 
patronymic ; and indescribable grandmothers—those venerable and gro- 
tesque abominations—to treat half-price, to the pantomime of some minor 
theatre. But when once we have bidden adieu to the school-room, the 
scene becomes altogether changed. In an instant we take our proper 
station in society. We rise to the moral altitude of manhood by virtue 
of our incipient whiskers and instinctive impudence; are no longer 
cyphers, but have a stake in the great affairs of life, and may even go 
the extreme length of sporting a political opinion. 
Some such blissful ideas flashed across my mind as, on a fine cool 
morning in October, I bade adieu to my school companions, and most 
condescendingly shook hands with one poor class-fellow in_ particular, 
who hadbeen well flogged only ten minutes before—a circumstance that 
materially improved the pathos of our mutual farewells. As the coach 
passed the old Abbey, behind whose ruins I had so often skulked ; as it 
wound along the side of the river, in whose waters I had so often, with 
scientific discrimination, hooked a bullrush for a barbel, and where I 
was once nearly, if not quite, drowned; the most riotous fancies came 
over me. I felt that I was now independent—oh, in this one word 
Independence, what a volume of pleasurable emotions is comprised !— 
_ that I was going to exchange the sky-blue and swipes of school for the 
_ more dignified compotations of college ; ring-taw and rounders for hunt- 
_ ing and tandem-driving ; and my ribbed corduroys blurred with ink, 
and bleached with perpetual ablutions, for clothes such as Petersham 
might be proud to wear, and Stultz to manufacture. Under the influence 
of these feelings I reached Cambridge—that hallowed, mysterious spot, 
which, with whatever sang froid we may approach it in after-life, can 
most assuredly never be visited for the first time in embryo manhood, 
_ without sentiments of the most elevated character. 
__. My first night was passed at that excellent inn, the Eagle and Child ; 
but, early on the following morning, I made my way to Mr. 
_T——a, tutor of the college at which I had previously entered my 
mame. By this gentleman I was received with the customary stateliness, 
d recommended, till rooms could be procured for me in the college, to 
ings at a bookbinder’s in the Pease Market. “ Of T. n,” to adopt 
e language of Dr. Johnson, “thus presented to my mind, let me here 
ndulge the remembrance.’”” He was—I should say, is, for he yet lives 
ished specimen of those dry adust book-worms—a race, thank 
God! now nearly extinct—whose brains are filled with learned lumber, 
_ to the diligent exclusion of all that is really valuable in learning. In 
person he was long—thin—transparent ; of a grave and formal demeanor, 
ding a joke in the most respectful abhorrence, and so strait-laced in 
