ch about the freedom which people enjoyed in England. "In France,"
he said, "with all the declamations about _Liberte_, _Egalite_,
_Fraternite_, there is very little freedom, and, with all the trees of
_liberte_ which are being planted along the boulevards, there is very
little of real liberty to be found there!" "But you in England," he
finished, "you have your old tree of liberty, which is always
flowering and showering _peas_ on the whole world." He wanted to say
peace. We tried to look solemn but failed, and a suppressed laugh went
round till it reached the Vice-Chancellor. There it stopped. He was
far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his face to move. "He
throws a cold blanket on everything," my neighbour said; and my
knowledge of English was still so imperfect that I accepted many of
these metaphorical remarks in their literal sense, and became more and
more puzzled about my host. It was evidently a pleasure to my friends
to see how easily I was taken in. On the walls of the houses at Oxford
I saw the letters F. P. about ten feet from the ground. Of course it
was meant for Fire Plug, but I was told that it marked the height of
the Vice-Chancellor, whose name was Frederick Plumptre.

My visit to Oxford was over all too soon, and I returned to London to
toil away at my Sanskrit MSS. in the little room that had been
assigned to me in the Old East India House in Leadenhall Street. That
building, too, in which the reins of the mighty Empire of India were
held, mostly by the hands of merchants, has vanished, and the place of
it knoweth it no more. However, I thought little of India, I only
thought of the library at the East India House, a real Eldorado for an
eager Sanskrit student, who had never seen such treasures before. I
saw little else there, I only remember seeing Tippoo Sahib's tiger
which held an English soldier in his claws, and was regularly wound up
for the benefit of visitors, and then uttered a loud squeak, enough to
disturb even the most absorbed of students. I felt quite dazed by all
the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal, and revelled in them
every day till it became dark, and I had to walk home through Ludgate
Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, generally carrying ever so many books
and papers under my arms. I knew nobody in the city, and no one knew
me; and what did I care for the world, as long as I had my beloved
manuscripts?

In March, 1848, I had to go over to Paris to finish up so