11.] MELANCHOLY HOUES. 333 



football of caprice. In this spot of earth, though it 

 gave me birth, I can never taste of ease. Here I must 

 he miserable. The principal end of man is to arrive 

 at happiness. Here I can never attain it ; and here, 

 therefore, I will no longer remain. My obligations to 

 the rascal who calls himself my master are cancelled by 

 his abuse of the authority I rashly placed in his hands, 

 I have no relations to bind me to this particular place." 

 The tears started in his eyes as he spoke. " I have no 

 tender ties to bid me stay, and why do I stay ? The 

 world is all before me. My inclination leads me to 

 travel ; I will pursue that inclination ; and, perhaps, in 

 a strange land I may find that repose which is denied 

 to me in the place of my birth. My finances, it is true, 

 are ill able to support the expenses of travelling : but 

 what then — Goldsmith, my friend !" with rising en- 

 thusiasm, " Goldsmith traversed Europe on foot, and I 

 am as hardy as Goldsmith. Yes, I will go, and perhaps, 

 ere long, I may sit me down on some towering mountain, 

 and exclaim with him, while a hundred realms lie in 

 perspective before me, — 



" Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine." 



It was in vain I entreated him to reflect maturely ere 

 he took so bold a step ; he was deaf to my importunities, 

 and the next morning I received a letter informing me of 

 his departure. He was observed about sun-rise sitting 

 on the stile at the top of an eminence which commanded 

 a prospect of the surrounding country, pensively looking 

 towards the village. I could divine his emotions on thus 

 casting, probably, a last look on his native place. The 

 neat white parsonage house, with the honeysuckle mant- 

 ling on its wall, I knew would receive his last glance ; 

 and the image of his father would present itself to his 

 mind, with a melancholy pleasure, as he was thus hasten- 

 ing, a solitary individual, to plunge himself into the 

 crowds of the world, deprived of that fostering hand 

 which would otherwise have been his support and guide. 

 From this period Charles Waneley was never heard of 

 at L ; and as his few relations cared little about 



I 



