apology. The apology was accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence
with less ceremony; the excuse was admitted with the same indulgence:
the slightest motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling
avocation at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment; nor
did my tutor appear conscious of my absence or neglect. Had the hour of
lecture been constantly filled, a single hour was a small portion of
my academic leisure. No plan of study was recommended for my use; no
exercises were prescribed for his inspection; and, at the most precious
season of youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapse without
labour or amusement, without advice or account. I should have listened
to the voice of reason and of my tutor; his mild behaviour had gained my
confidence. I preferred his society to that of the younger students; and
in our evening walks to the top of Heddington-hill, we freely conversed
on a variety of subjects. Since the days of Pocock and Hyde, Oriental
learning has always been the pride of Oxford, and I once expressed an
inclination to study Arabic. His prudence discouraged this childish
fancy; but he neglected the fair occasion of directing the ardour of a
curious mind. During my absence in the summer vacation, Dr. Waldegrave
accepted a college living at Washington in Sussex, and on my return I no
longer found him at Oxford. From that time I have lost sight of my first
tutor; but at the end of thirty years (1781) he was still alive; and the
practice of exercise and temperance had entitled him to a healthy old
age.

The long recess between the Trinity and Michaelmas terms empties the
colleges of Oxford, as well as the courts of Westminster. I spent, at
my father's house at Beriton in Hampshire, the two months of August
and September. It is whimsical enough, that as soon as I left Magdalen
College, my taste for books began to revive; but it was the same blind
and boyish taste for the pursuit of exotic history. Unprovided with
original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the
arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. The title of this first
Essay, The Age of Sesostris, was perhaps suggested by Voltaire's Age
of Lewis XIV. which was new and popular; but my sole object was to
investigate the probable date of the life and reign of the conqueror
of Asia. I was then enamoured of Sir John Marsham's Canon Chronicus; an
elaborate work, of whose merits and defects I was not yet