NEW HOIME 49 



my i^art, and showed want of knowledge of the world, 

 which may well rank as an indiscretion. Nevertheless, 

 it was this promise that first induced me to commit a 

 greater indiscretion, in quitting a certain and well- 

 established concern for an appointment that was quite 

 new to me, and its success uncertain ; thus leaving myself 

 open to the fate of those, whose interests are generally 

 sacrificed or overlooked, when an accommodation or com- 

 promise takes place between two hostile parties. 



But, indiscretion or not, the change had the recom- 

 mendation of novelty, and — what was my principal object 

 — the hours of employment would be more congenial to 

 the wishes and domestic comforts of one who was again 

 desirous of having an establishment of his own, however 

 it might difi'er from the last in des^ree ; of a2:ain livinsf not 

 entirely by or for himself, but of providing a new home, 

 however humble it might be, for his two children, where 

 he might become again jDossessed of those social and 

 rational 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 virulent 

 opponents, so soon after a great domestic calamity had 

 befallen him. But it was so. Fate, as the poet says, 

 hurried me on ; and, all things being arranged, 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 intended 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 



VOL. II. E 



