304 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



and in advance,' devoted to my accomplishments. 

 Never had man more profound contempt for trade and 

 traders than he at whose feet I was indoctrinated. He 

 turned his nose up at the wealthiest grocer in the ward ; 

 and was barely civil to a tobacconist who had a villa at 

 Pentonville, and was, moreover, first favourite for an 

 aldermanic gown. Such delinquency could not be over- 

 looked, and for his heretical opinions touching commerce 

 he was eventually ejected from Tooley Street But, 

 alas ! the mischief was done the seed was already- 

 sown and, as after-experience proved, none of it had 

 fallen upon the way-side. 



" ' In brevity I shall emulate the noble Roman,' quoth 

 Jack Falstaff ; and so shall I, so far as the autobiography 

 of my youth is concerned. I abominated business was an 

 admirer of the Corsair and Lallan Rookh was generally 

 given to inflammatory poetry wrote fugitive pieces, 

 and vainly endeavoured to get them a corner in the 

 periodicals quarrelled with my parents was supported 

 in my rebellion by a romantic aunt and when my 

 disinheritance was actually in legal train, was saved 

 by my parents quitting this world of care, which they 

 did within one short month, by the agency of a typhus 

 fever and two physicians. 



" Thus was I thrown upon the world at two-and- 

 twenty, with thirty thousand pounds. Need I say 

 that I abjured business instanter, and that the honoured 

 name of Dawkins disappeared from the list of dry- 

 salters ? For some years, none led a more peaceful 

 and literary life ; and though this may appear a solecism, 

 nevertheless it is positively true. The rejection of 

 my early fugitives had chilled the metrical outbreakings 

 of my imagination. I had almost Cowper's sensibility 



