246 OXFOKD. 



tional enjoyments of which he had been 

 deprived. 



I cannot, though at this distance of 

 time, but feel the sting of conscience at 

 leaving my father that is, his employ 

 to enter that of one of his most viru- 

 lent opponents, so soon after a great 

 domestic calamity had befallen him. But 

 it was so. Fate, as the poet says, hur- 

 ried me on ; and, all things being ar- 

 ranged, I started from the establishment 

 I once considered myself heir to, on the 

 box of a new Cheltenham coach, which 

 I was to drive to Oxford. It was in- 

 tended that I should be a part-proprietor. 

 Indeed, I had promised to work a stage 

 myself, so anxious was I to get upon 

 that road, which appeared to me to be 

 the most fashionable and the most fre- 

 quented out of London ; but, not seeing 

 my way quite clear, I declined and it 

 was quite as well I did, the coach, as I 



