112 THE EARLY DAYS OF 



prosperous reign of fifty years. In this situation I have dihgently 

 numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness, and they amount 

 to fourteen." 



For my part I can fairly say that my happy days have far 

 exceeded the scanty hours of the Spanish CaHph; and although, 

 according to my Marlborough tutor, I had qualified myself for a 

 long period of transportation, I experienced full fourteen happy 

 days after the news arrived that I had passed the examination at 

 the India House, and I was admitted to the East India College at 

 Haileybury. I certainly did not feel the peculiar ecstasy which 

 absorbed me when I heard my father had arrived to take me home 

 for the first hoHdays of Marlborough College. But still I should 

 have been gl id if Joshua could have been present, to postpone sine 

 die the progress of the sun ; for what I considered riches and 

 honour seemed spread out before me, and I would gladly have 

 surveyed them for ever, in prospective. 



Another undoubted evil of unlimited Free-Trade, in this neigh- 

 bourhood at all events, is that a large proportion of the fields are 

 fertile, not with corn, but with the couch-grass and thistles. 



** * . . . . non ullus aratro. 



Dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonist' 



When I was travelling in a certain part of the Ottoman Empire, I 

 passed much fertile land uncultivated, as ours is here, and in answer 

 to enquiries, my dragoman said it was not considered worth anyone's 

 while to cultivate it, for when a good crop appeared the government 

 myrmidons pounced down and bagged it. I think of this when our 

 tax-collector calls on me, and carries off the surplus which my farm 

 has yielded. But I comfort myself by the reflection that I must 

 expect to pay up for the many privileges which a free-born English- 

 man enjoys, and fortunately I am not dependent on my farm for 

 daily bread. I have kept most careful accounts since I took to 



* Little encouragcnieiu is given to speed the plough. The labourers have left the place, and thistles are 

 rampant in the fields. 



