CHAPTER III.

"Like youthful fteers, unyoked, they took their course, Eaft, Weft, North, South. Or, like a school broke up, Each burries towards his home and sporting place."

2. K. H. IV. act Iv. sc. I.

IS a fine thing to be a Grand Compounder!

For, not only are you allowed to be more

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hungry than the mere commoner, but you are

confidered a more lacking in knowledge alfo. At least, fince you have to pay double for your food, double for your raiment (that unseemly gown and quaint cap, to wit), and double for your tutorage; it lieth upon the authorities of your college to explain how 'tis otherwise they set before you such a Benjamin's mess (fo to speak) of every thing physical and moral. A curious inquiry, no

The Gentle's Privilege.

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doubt; but i' faith the burfar carries the old story farther than did the patriarch's fteward; for he will take your own cup, and of your caution money return little into your fack.

Now, Effex had this advantage of his high privilege; for at the age of fifteen he graduated a Master, while Cheney, fome half-year his fenior, and at least his equal in ability and study, was proud that he could write Bachelor of Arts. So, fir, you may calculate (on any ufurer's tables) that, unless order be taken in this matter, your fon and heir, young Master Hopeful, fhall in due time-while yet in his chrifom perhaps be honoured with a D.C.L. or a S.T.P., not to boast of fuch trifles as LL.D., which, footh to say, seem to involve no farther dignity than the ceremony of institution and the payment of certain fees.

The morrow and following days were paffed in the examinations. Degrees were conferred, and the glad hour of departure at length came. Our friends and others of their year will not return. Having brought to an end that tedious course of restraint, they are now about to enter on a world of hopes. To one of their clafs, college difcipline, was it not wholly irksome? the gaberdine a badge, almost

of fervitude? the food, the lodging, nay, the very clothes, fo far inferior to their home use, were they not things only to be borne as temporary privations? These academic honours even, what be they but poor drolleries indicative of their period of release? To the sports of Youth, its exercises to the affairs and incitements of Men, they were hastening eagerly. The world-bright, busy world that it is-was in front; and few thoughts troubled them of those Clouds and Storms which, Faith and Experience have to show, will only render it more varied and more beautiful.

Now to the other class, to the poorer scholars, as all was fuperior here to the scanty, coarse modes of home, and its illiterate trivialities, the sense of change was that of sorrow also. They had been better houfed and boarded, even better clothed upon their college exhibitions: and they had sped far better as fizars and bible-clerks in the poorest college, than they could hope to feed or fare on the hardearnings of their parents. Honest fellows these among the smaller tradesmen in provincial towns! To their native hamlet, or to fome humble cure far in the rural districts, they were, as they felt, now permanently banished.

Having mixed with lordlings and young gentlemen

The Poor Scholar, his Lot.

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-perhaps to fome extent having caught their manners and their fentiments-now they should be caft among hucksters, and yeomen, and peasants (save the mark!) to forget their learning, and fust in a mean obfcurity. How different their lot! Yet, had any one among them been able to forefee, he would not have envied the young nobleman who was now bidding them 'Godspeed!'

There was great stir in the quadrangle and the lodgings. Carriers were loading pack-horses with the scanty baggage of those who travelled by the stage.' Several of these, forming a company, would proceed towards fome large town. If one, reaching his journey's end, stopped by the way, furely there was another thereabout to begin his travels thence. None dared to travel fingly (if he thought himself worth the fearching). And the carriers who conducted the expedition were well-armed. You might meet outlaws on the heath, they said, or vagabond thieves (clerks of St. Nicholas), in every wood. But, in truth, the greater danger was often encountered in the hoftelries: where, befide roguish overchargings, there were royfterers and cutpurses of every degree.

Here and there, lingering maybe amidst old scenes,

might be spied one of the humbleft class, his little stock of clothes, and haply a book or two, tied up in a kerchief, flung through a stick and caft over his shoulder. He was for the road: a-foot, alone! No grievous robber did he fear-no roguish chamberlain; none would be troubled to stab his poke or filch his doublet. And to the farthest part of Cornwall or Northumberland would he trudge unhurt; lodging unwelcomed; feeding uncofened—often on alms. Weary and footfore (mayhap fevered), he would reach his mountain home, an object of amazement to his neighbours, of how deep interest to his fimple friends!

Effex, on the morning of his departure, betook himself to the master's rooms. What Cheney had revealed to him, coupled with the thoughts it fuggested, had rendered him lefs eager to quit, for the last time, persons who had treated him with steady kindness.

And there was much fympathy between the tutor and the pupil-the master of Trinity and the under-graduatewhether gentle or fimple, noble or fizar, cut or longtail, as the faying is; the real bufinefs of moral culture producing a reverence on the one fide and a confcientious intereft on the other. And if, in externals, the distance