no
means overwhelmed by the honour. "I thought to have found him mightily
pleased with the opinion we had of his conduct, and the credit of having a
gentleman's son under his charge, and the father with cap in hand.
Instead of all this he talked at a rate as if the gentry were _obliged_ to
tutors more than tutors to them." The tutor, in short, was decidedly tart
in his admonitions to this honest family--he did not forget, either, to
assure them that (_generally_) a college tutor was worse paid than a
dancing-master. Here is a specimen of his advice--sound and practical
enough in its way:--

"I understand by one of your daughters that you have brought him up a
_fine padd_ to keep here for his health's sake. Now I will tell you
the use of an horse in Oxford, and then do as you think fit.
The horse must be kept at an _ale-house_ or an _inn_, and he must
have leave to go once _every day_ to see him eat oats, because the
master's eye makes him fat; and it will not be genteel to go often
to an house and spend nothing; and then there may be some danger of
the horse growing _resty_ if he be not used often, so you must give
him leave to go to _Abingdon_ once every week, to look out of the
tavern window and see the maids sell turnips; and in one month or
two come home with a surfeit of poisoned wine, and save _any
farther trouble_ by dying, and then you will be troubled to send
for your horse _again_. . . ."

The humour of college tutors has not greatly altered in two hundred years.
I have known one or two capable of the sardonic touch in those concluding
words. But conceive its effect upon the squire's lady and daughters!
No: you need not trouble to do so, for the squire describes it: "When the
tutor was gone out of the room, I asked how they liked the person and his
converse. My boy clung about his mother and cry'd to go home again, and
she had no more wit than to be of the same mind; she thought him too
weakly to undergo so much hardship as she foresaw was to be expected.
My daughter, who (instead of catechism and _Lady's Calling_) had been used
to read nothing but speeches in romances, and hearing nothing of _Love_
and _Honour_ in all the talk, fell into downright _scolding_ at him;
call'd him the _merest_ scholar; and if this were your _Oxford_ breeding,
they had rather he should go to _Constantinople_ to learn manners!
But I, who