466 Three Years at Cambridge. [ May, 
. dinary fascination. The two fellow-commoners seemed pretty much of 
my way of thinking, for shortly after our entrance: they both left off 
their game, and after a few indifferent remarks, proposed that we should 
all adjourn to a neighbouring fish-pond at (I forget the man’s name), 
and there troll for a few pike. Having nothing better to do, we unhesi- 
tatingly closed with this proposition, and set off for one of those well- 
known reservoirs of mud in which the starvling pike of Cam are pre- 
served. And here it may not be amiss to sketch, for the benefit of the 
uninitiated, the delights of Cambridge trolling. In the first place, you get 
as close as possible to the muddy margin of an oozy oblong pond, agree- 
ably chequered with bullrushes and chickweed (both usually in high 
condition) ; secondly, you flourish over-head an uncouth rod, with a 
wheel as large as Ixion’s, and equally impracticable ; thirdly, having 
finished such aérial evolution, you let your bait drop into the water, and 
there keep it till you find your wrist nearly jerked off your arm; 
fourthly, being convinced, from this satisfactory symptom, that you have 
hooked a fish, you proceed to pull him out, or rather he proceeds to pull 
you in; and, fifthly, the sport is wound up by your throwing a summer- 
sault, head-foremost, into the water, in an abortive attempt to bend 
gracefully forward for the purpose of securing your prey. After a half- 
hour’s amusement of this sort, in the course of which I had caught 
nothing but the calf of P. t’s left leg, I bade adieu to Chesterton, and 
took the shortest road back to Cambridge. By this time the second bell 
had rung for dinner; so, without a moment’s delay, I proceeded to 
Hall, where I was just in time to secure the last cut of a cold leg of 
mutton, near the knuckle. This being with difficulty discussed, and 
washed down with a proportionate modicum of brisk swipes, I hurried 
back to my rooms, where I soon forgot all my dietetic mortifications 
in a glass of Mr. Triston’s best wine, and a volume of the Scotch 
novels. In the evening, I attended chapel—for I had not yet learned 
to set college laws at defiance—where I received a strong stimu- 
lus to my devotion by hearing the long mellow snore of the Master keep 
time to the deeper and more practised tones of the Bursar’s nose. This — 
brought me to the social hour of tea, which being also concluded, I 
strolled for an hour into Deighton’s, to read the last number of the 
Monthly Magazine, and fimished the night with P. t, and one or two 
other friends, over a bow] of that immaculate milk-punch, which, what- — 
ever be the envy of his contemporaries, will assuredly hand down the 
name of Newby to posterity. 
Thus with a few slight variations, such as fits of hard study and occa- 
sional breakings forth into strenuous dissipation, passed my first year at 
Cambridge. My second brought an addition to my income by the death ~ 
of my father—I was his only child, and my mother had been long since — 
dead — which event took place for the sole purpose, as it should seem, of 
luring me on to destruction. I now began to enlarge the sphere of my 
amusements: among other follies, I became ambitious of the honor of 
being a whip, procured a tandem from Jordan, cultivated the acquai 
ance of that immortal coachman, Hell-fire Dick, and was often se 
bending beneath the weight of a box coat with countless capes. My — 
particular crony at this period was the above mentioned driver of the — 
Telegraph. True, he was not exactly a gentleman, but he was better; _ 
he was a genius of the first water. His eloquence was bold, vigorous. 
and discursive ; his habits social and bibulous; his opinions quaint ane 
anti-matrimonial. He was attached to church and state, hated the French: 
