Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

iscount would also have Harry stay a few days to show him the pleasures of the town, before he entered upon his University studies, and whilst here Harry's patron conducted the young man

arms of sailors, barges, and wherries. Harry laughed at recognizing in the parlour the well-remembered old piece of Sir Peter Lely, wherein his father's widow was represented as a v

ow considerably past sixty years of age, I believe she thought that airy nymph of the picture could

in which my Lord Castlewood was no great proficient, and expressed her satisfaction at finding that Mr. Esmond could speak fluently i

viour. He said he remembered the time when she could speak English fast enough,

nd children; she had heard that Lady Castlewood had had the small-

he disfigurement of the young lady, turned to her looking-glass and examined her old wrinkled countenance in it w

, was rather glad than otherwise, that the youth should be so provided for. She bade Mr. Esmond not to forget to pay her a visit whenever he passed through London, and carried [pg 108] her graciousness so far as to send a purse with twenty guineas for him, to the tavern at which

ey. Those rapid new coaches were not established as yet, that performed the whole journey between London and the University in a single day; howev

e, who was appointed to be Harry's tutor. Tom Tusher, who was of Emmanuel College, and was by this time a junior soph, came to wait upon my lord, and to take Harry under his protection; and comfortable rooms being provided for him in the g

e was set on to read Latin, which he did with the foreign pronunciation taught to him by his old master, the Jesuit, than which he knew no other. Mr. Bridge, the tutor, made him the object of clumsy jokes, in which he was fond of indulging. The young man's spirit was chafed, and his vanity mortified; and he found himself, for some time, as lonely in this place as ever he had been at Castlewood, whither he longed to return. His birth was a source of shame to him, and he fancied a hundred slights and sneers from young and old, who, no doubt, had treated him better had he met them himself more frankly. And as he looks back, in calmer days, upon this period of his life, which he thought so unhappy, he can see that his own pride and vanity caused no small part of the mortifications which he attributed to others' ill will. The world deals good-naturedly with good-natured people, and I never knew a sulky misanthropist

with whom he began to pass for more than he was worth. A few victories over their common enemy Mr. Bridge, made them incline towards him, and look upon him as the champion of their order against the seniors. Such of the lads as he took into [pg 110] his confidence,

te young friends to burgundy, and give the king's health on King James's birthday; wore black on the day of his abdication; f

t of bows. No wonder he sighed over Harry's insubordinate courses, and was angry when the others laughed at him. But that Harry was known to have my lord viscount's protection, Tom no doubt would have broken with him altogether. But honest Tom never gave up a comr

not mean to say that Tom ever let out his good looks so profitably, for [pg 111] nature had not endowed him with any particular charms of person, and he ever was a pattern of moral behaviour, losing no opportunity of giving the very best advice to his younger comrade; with which article, to do him justice, he parted very freely. Not but that he was a merry fellow, too, in his way; he loved a joke, if by good fortune he understood it, and took his share generously of a bottle if another paid for it, and especially if there was a young lord in company to drink it. In these cases there was not a harder drinker in the University than Mr. Tusher could be; and it was edifying to behold him, fresh shaved and with smug face, singing out "Amen!" at early chapel in the morning. In his reading, poor Harry permitted himse

ever permitted his mind to stray out of the prescribed University path, accepted the Thirty-nine Articles with all his heart, and would have signed and sworn to other nine-and-thirty with entire obedience. Harry's wilfulness in this matter, and disorderly thoughts and conversation, so shocked and afflicted his senior, that there grew up a coldness and [pg 112] estrangement between them, so that they became scarce more than mere acquaintances, from having been intimate friends when they came to college first. Politics ran high, too, at the Unive

frolics of the students, who were, for the most part, two or three years younger than he. He fancied that the gentlemen of the common-room of his college slighted him on account of his birth, and hence kept aloof from their society. It may be that he made the ill will, which he imagined came from them, b

aloon-of-arms. Though he declared himself a Protestant, 'twas said Mr. Moreau was a Jesuit in disguise; indeed, he brought very strong recommendations to the Tory party, which was pretty strong in that University, and very likely was one of the many agents whom King James had in this country. Esmond found this gentleman's conversation very much more agreeable, and to his taste, [pg 113] than the talk of the col

e; and Harry felt that he would very gladly cede his right to the living of Castlewood to Tom, and that his own calling was in no way the pulpit. But as he was bound, before all things in the world, to his dear mistress at home, and knew that a refus