less I intended to fritter away my
existence, and to be a useless burden to those who had given me birth;
but what profession was I to choose? there being none in the wide world
perhaps for which I was suited; nor was there any one for which I felt
any decided inclination, though perhaps there existed within me a lurking
penchant for the profession of arms, which was natural enough, as, from
my earliest infancy, I had been accustomed to military sights and sounds;
but this profession was then closed, as I have already hinted, and, as I
believe, it has since continued, to those who, like myself, had no better
claims to urge than the services of a father.

My father, who, for certain reasons of his own, had no very high opinion
of the advantages resulting from this career, would have gladly seen me
enter the Church. His desire was, however, considerably abated by one or
two passages of my life, which occurred to his recollection. He
particularly dwelt on the unheard-of manner in which I had picked up the
Irish language, and drew from thence the conclusion that I was not fitted
by nature to cut a respectable figure at an English university. "He will
fly off in a tangent," said he, "and, when called upon to exhibit his
skill in Greek, will be found proficient in Irish; I have observed the
poor lad attentively, and really do not know what to make of him; but I
am afraid he will never make a churchman!" And I have no doubt that my
excellent father was right, both in his premises and the conclusion at
which he arrived. I had undoubtedly, at one period of my life, forsaken
Greek for Irish, and the instructions of a learned Protestant divine, for
those of a Papist gossoon, the card-fancying Murtagh; and of late, though
I kept it a strict secret, I had abandoned in a great measure the study
of the beautiful Italian, and the recitation of the sonorous terzets of
the Divine Comedy, in which at one time I took the greatest delight, in
order to become acquainted with the broken speech, and yet more broken
songs, of certain houseless wanderers whom I had met at a horse fair.
Such an erratic course was certainly by no means in consonance with the
sober and unvarying routine of college study. And my father, who was a
man of excellent common sense, displayed it, in not pressing me to adopt
a profession which required qualities of mind which he saw I did not
possess.

Other professions were talked of, amongst which the law; but now