UNIVERSITY CAREER. 69 



the overhanging of the clouds, which were deepening over his love- 

 prospects, though for a brief space breaking into delusive sun- 

 shine : * — 



" London, October 3, 1805. 



" My dear Bob : — I received your letter in a wonderfully short 

 time after it was written, considering the extensive tour of his Ma- 

 jesty's dominion it had judged it expedient to take before conde- 

 scending to pay me a visit. It spent the greatest part of the summer 

 in visiting Oxford, London, Scarborough, Harrowgate, Edinburgh, 

 and the various post-towns of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and 

 Lancashire. When it finally reached me, its visage was wofully 

 begrimed with dirt, and its sides squeezed into a shape far from 

 epistolary. It truly cut a most ridiculous appearance, and, indeed, 

 was ashamed of itself, for it made its escape from my possession 

 the day after I first cast salt upon its tail ; and as I have never seen 

 it since, I am led to suppose that it may have once more set out on 

 its travels, in which case you probably will meet with it soon hi 

 Glasgow. 



" I was not a little provoked to find, that during my solitary 

 rambles in Ireland, you were improving yourself in polite accom- 

 plishments among the mountains of Wales. The rapidity with 

 which you travelled seems to have been astonishing and praise- 

 worthy. 



" I do not feel myself in a mood just now to give you any 

 account of my Irish expedition, which afforded me all the possible 

 varieties of pain, and a good many modifications of pleasure. It 

 was prolific in adventure and scrape, and made me acquainted with 

 strange bed-fellows. Had you been with me, I am sure we would 

 have enjoyed it more than you can well imagine. I have spent this 

 summer at Scarborough, Harrowgate, and the Lakes. The weather 

 has been sufficiently bad to provoke an old sow to commit suicide — 

 a fact which actually took place near Ambleside. The creature cut 

 its throat with a hand-saw. 



" .... I have bought some ground on Windermere Lake, but 

 whether in future years I may five there, I know not. I think that 

 a settled life will never do for me ; and I often lament that I did 



* As he in after life said, "Sometimes, my dear Shepherd, my life from eighteen to twenty-four 

 is an utter blank, like a moonless midnight; at other times, ohl what a refulgeDt day I" — Xoctea, 



XXXV. 



