xxviii 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
hour of my life I shall acknowledge, with feelings of 
sincerest gratitude, the many acts of paternal kind- 
ness which I so often received at the hands of the 
learned and generous fathers of Stonyhurst College, 
" Praesidium et dulce decus meum." 
After leaving this safe retreat of health and 
peace, " I journeyed homewards to join my father ; 
and I spent a year with him^ " Gaudens equis cani- 
busque et aprici gramine campi." He was well de- 
scribed by the Roman poet : — 
" Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis, 
Ut prisca gens mortalium, 
Paterna rura, bobus exercet suis 
Solutus omni foenore." 
He had been a noted hunter in his early days ; and, 
as he still loved in his heart to hear the mellow tones 
of the fox hound, he introduced me particularly to 
Lord Darlington, whose elegant seat on horseback, 
and cool intrepidity in charging fences, made him 
the admiration of his surrounding company. 
Still my father would every now and then say to 
me, with a gracious though significant smile on his 
countenance, " Studium quid inutile tentas?'* and, 
as my mother was very anxious that I should see 
the world, they took advantage of the short peace of 
Amiens, and sent me to Spain. 
Two of my maternal uncles, who had received 
brilliant educations, and were endowed with great 
parts, but who were not considered worthy to serve 
their country in any genteel or confidential capa- 
city, unless they would apostatise from the faith of 
their ancestors, had deemed it prudent to leave their 
