THE

COLLEGIAN'S GUIDE,

&c.

CHAPTER I.

A CHAPTER GIVING A GLIMPSE OF THE BILL OF FARE, AND WHETTING THE APPETITE FOR THINGS TO FOLLOW.

ONE morning, on or about the third day of August last, being on my way to invite my old friend John Corbett, to talk of the past and enjoy the present over a quiet dinner, when the duties of his parish and one-sixth part of two sermons had been duly performed, I met old Abram the clerk. Parish clerks are a distinct genus from other men, and old Abram, as all Whitchurch knows, seems also distinct from other parish clerks. He seems as much a part of the village, and not much less ancient, than the old church, and (excuse the metaphor) of the same early Gothic architecture.

"You see'd another carriage, didn't ye, sir, that had been down that mortal steep hill, just on purpose for to come up again?"

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They mistook their way, eh?"

"Yes, sure, sir; one's certain toit looks the likeliest road to Didley by a deal. Well! there 'tis

B

again. When I saw Williams, as has the looking after it, three years ago, says I, 'If you'd just let my Harry cut you out and paint a bit of printing on a two-foot board, and nail it up against the old ash tree let alone a regular sign-post, to make a good job of it — you'd save it in ruts in a month;-but 'tis the horses I pity most, and there goes two that ought to be four with such a load, any how.""

While he was thus running on, saying two words for his son the carpenter to one for the good of the public, and while he was arguing that since the board aforesaid would cost so little, save so much, and be so soon done, if any one would but be the man to set about what all the parish might do if they would, John Corbett joined us, and, as we parted, heard me say, "That is not the only thing, Abram, easy to do, yet long undone; -way of the world, I am afraid."

"Has Paxton

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"You may say that," said Corbett. been to you yet?" "About what?" Sending Fred to college. I have been talking to him till I am tired; and then, please your worship, I passed him on to your door." After a word or two he added, "There's another case like Abram's grievance in the ways to college, at college, ay, and after college too, the most likely-looking road is the wrong one, and the way back into the right is very considerably steeper than Whitchurch hill. I only wish I had had some sort of sign-post to guide me there." "Do you think you would have followed it?" "To be sure I should in things indifferent, and where I

REV. JOHN CORBETT.

3

hampered myself from sheer ignorance; and so would you. Why, what temptation had you to get into that mess with Ricketts -to say nothing of the score at Cox's, and heaps of others? Where a man is tempted with his eyes open, I say, leave him alone till he finds things out for himself. Experience is what the Useful Knowledge Society can't make cheap, nor the Penny Magazine palatable; but I do think that something like the two-foot board that Abram talks of might be very serviceable, especially to the governors; they'd follow it fast enough to save their tin. But more of this after dinner, and then we'll see what to do for Paxton. You'll be asked to the Hall on the tenth-such doings! I am going; so is all the world and his wife: then won't Fred's school-medal hang in state, and shan't we have the whole story over again!"

John Corbett, the over-worked and under-paid curate of Whitchurch, was one of the right sort. He had more of the essence than the accidents of gentility about him. He used to say, as he tried to rub up the whitened seams of his second year's black, "You see my ship isn't come in yet, and I have to wait before I come into my fortune. I am of age, 'tis true that's to say, I have the privilege of going to gaol for myself, instead of the governor for me. My grandfather, you must know, drove four-in-hand; my father, till a baker's dozen of us ate in pap what used to pay for corn, sported a pair: I can now (say nothing about John Sheard's tandem) very rarely come it in a gig; and were I now to disregard the

warnings of Mr. Malthus and Miss Martineau, and multiply after my kind, the family equipage would degenerate into a wheelbarrow, till one of the brood rose to be either a railway contractor or church-rate martyr, and patched up the family coach, to ring the same changes once again."

Since much of what I have to say results from my memory being refreshed and my judgment formed by many a "lang-syne" talk with the Reverend John, let us come at once to the dinner-table on August the 3rd, 1843, pass the bottle, and let him speak for himself:

"I might be a little richer now; but what a comfort it is to be able to keep your standing as a gentleman, and not owe a penny to any man! I can hear the postman's knock without starting, and go down stairs to see a stranger without expecting to hear, Please, sir, Mr. Squeezum's commercial agenta small account.' Look at all the men of my years (he was nearly thirty years of age) round the country, -John Hicks, Big Perry, Red-headed Smith, Jackson, or any of the old set; it makes a man nervous to go and visit them; they seem to have brought all the college duns along with them. Hicks is a very good-hearted fellow, and I have seen him, sick-visiting, fumble with his hand about his pocket, and then come away and say, 'It serves me right for making such a fool of myself at Exeter (College). What I frittered away there would save many a poor soul from a hungry stomach, and me from the heart-ache at seeing it.'"

TOUCHING MONEY MATTERS.

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"You were in for about a hundred pounds, were you not, Corbett ?"

"Ninety-seven pounds five and sixpence, including one and sixpence for Steeven's last skiff and a tenpenny egg-bill. I knew I could keep faith with the creters, and pay off by degrees, stopping all clamour by high interest; but had it come to Joey's (the tutor's) ears and the tradesmen always go to them to learn a man's country residence before he is in the clergy list-my testimonials were in danger. Ah! more need of Abram's sign-post there too. Little did I think that, so long as I never went out with these mad rapscallions of the corner staircase on any of their freebooting expeditions, the very fact of my rooms being near theirs, and my being seen with them about Quad, led to conclusions 'strong as holy Writ' against me; so I was properly bullied about testimonials. Then, again, the trustees of the exhibition which I held would have talked, as old Skurry had once the impudence to do, of the enormity of a pensionera pauper he would have said getting in debt; then they would have cut me downright : but as it is, I have their interest still; and, as one of them is a big gun (a canon), that is worth something. Now, mark me, I have no sort of pity for fellows who complain of the persecution of university tradesmen. If you have not the money to pay, write and name a day for a small instalment. Tell the plain truth, be punctual and honest with them, and they will be civil to you, and, when you have paid off a four years' bill, will say, as they did to me, 'Thank