A NOTORIOUS CHARACTER 73 



me to "write to him from Hampshire, that he might be 

 assured of my convalescence. 



Under my sister's care, and by paying strict attention 

 to my doctor's instructions, I gradually got better, but 

 my spirits did not keep pace with my bodily improvement. 

 A melancholy and despairing feeling had seized me ; and, 

 as I got out, led me to the churchyard, where it would 

 find vent in odes and elegies of toe gloomy a nature for 

 public or even private inspection. I did not at all extend 

 my visits, nor indeed did I seem to have delight in the 

 former scenes of my enjoyments, and my brother the 

 lieutenant was the only visitor in whose society I had any 

 pleasure during my summer's residence at Catherington. 



In the latter end of the autumn I returned to town, 

 determined to shake off the hopelessness which Avas 

 becoming habitual, and to seek, as common sense and 

 necessity dictated, some means of obtaining a subsistence. 



During my short sojourn at Oxford I had made 

 acquaintance with two or three celebrated characters who 

 figured conspicuously on that road, of whom I have 

 attempted to give a sketch in the early part of this 

 narrative. Among them was one who stood very high in 

 his own estimation. He had risen by a peculiar method, 

 made up of arrogance and persuasion, vulgarity and 

 venality, strong nerve and recklessness of all consequences 

 — to all of which it Avould be impossible to give the 

 reader an adequate insight — and had become a man of 

 great notoriety. 



He had been the principal means of stirring up oppo- 

 sition after opposition on almost every line of road out of 

 Oxford ; but though he had done considerable injury to 



