My father was a hard man
for any one to argue with, for he never knew when he was refuted. I
sometimes posed him a little, but then he had one argument that always
settled the question; he would threaten to knock me down. I believe he
at last grew tired of me, because I both out-talked and outrode him.
The red-nosed squire, too, got out of conceit of me, because in the
heat of the chase, I rode over him one day as he and his horse lay
sprawling in the dirt. My father, therefore, thought it high time to
send me to college; and accordingly to Trinity College at Oxford was I
sent.
I had lost my habits of study while at home; and I was not likely to
find them again at college. I found that study was not the fashion at
college, and that a lad of spirit only ate his terms; and grew wise by
dint of knife and fork. I was always prone to follow the fashions of
the company into which I fell; so I threw by my books, and became a man
of spirit. As my father made me a tolerable allowance, notwithstanding
the narrowness of his income, having an eye always to my great
expectations, I was enabled to appear to advantage among my
fellow-students. I cultivated all kinds of sports and exercises. I was
one of the most expert oarsmen that rowed on the Isis. I boxed and
fenced. I was a keen huntsman, and my chambers in college were always
decorated with whips of all kinds, spurs, foils, and boxing gloves. A
pair of leather breeches would seem to be throwing one leg out of the
half-open drawers, and empty bottles lumbered the bottom of every
closet.
I soon grew tired of this, and relapsed into my vein of mere poetical
indulgence. I was charmed with Oxford, for it was full of poetry to me.
I thought I should never grow tired of wandering about its courts and
cloisters; and visiting the different college halls. I used to love to
get in places surrounded by the colleges, where all modern buildings
were screened from the sight; and to walk about them in twilight, and
see the professors and students sweeping along in the dusk in their
caps and gowns. There was complete delusion in the scene. It seemed to
transport me among the edifices and the people of old times. It was a
great luxury, too, for me to attend the evening service in the new
college chapel, and to hear the fine organ and the choir swelling an
anthem in that solemn building; where painting and music and
architecture seem to combine their grandest effects.
I became a loiterer, also, about the Bodleian library, and a great
dipper into books; but too idle to follow any course of study or vein
of research. One of my favorite haunts was the beautiful walk, bordered
by lofty elms, along the Isis, under the old gray walls of Magdalen
College, which goes by the name of Addison's Walk; and was his resort
when a student at the college. I used to take a volume of poetry in my
hand, and stroll up and down this walk for hours.
My father came to see me at college. He asked me how I came on with my
studies; and what kind of hunting there was in the neighborhood. He
examined my sporting apparatus; wanted to know if any of the professors
were fox-hunters; and whether they were generally good shots; for he
suspected this reading so much was rather hurtful to the sight. Such
was the only person to whom I was responsible for my improvement: is it
matter of wonder, therefore, that I became a confirmed idler?
I do not know how it is, but I cannot be idle long without getting in
love. I became deeply smitten with a shopkeeper's daughter in the high
street; who in fact was the admiration of many of the students. I wrote
several sonnets in praise of her, and spent half of my pocket-money at
the shop, in buying articles which I did not want, that I might have an
opportunity of speaking to her. Her father, a severe-looking old
gentleman, with bright silver buckles and a crisp, curled wig, kept a
strict guard on her; as the fathers generally do upon their daughters
in Oxford; and well they may. I tried to get into his good graces, and
to be sociable with him; but in vain. I said several good things in his
shop, but he never laughed; he had no relish for wit and humor. He was
one of those dry old gentlemen who keep youngsters at bay. He had
already brought up two or three daughters, and was experienced in the
ways of students.
He was as knowing and wary as a gray old badger that has often been
hunted. To see him on Sunday, so stiff and starched in his demeanor; so
precise in his dress; with his daughter under his arm, and his
ivory-headed cane in his hand, was enough to deter all graceless
youngsters from approaching.
I managed, however, in spite of his vigilance, to have several
Conversations with the daughter, as I cheapened articles in the shop. I
made terrible long bargains, and examined the articles over and over,
before I purchased. In the meantime, I would convey a sonnet or an
acrostic under cover of a piece of cambric, or slipped into a pair of
stockings; I would whisper soft nonsense into her ear as I haggled
about the price; and would squeeze her hand tenderly as I received my
halfpence of change, in a bit of whity-brown paper.
