o not _you_ be so weak as to fall into them. There is no
disgrace in being poor, but there is disgrace and dishonesty too, in
contracting debts which you are unable to discharge.

Some young Oxonians, I am afraid, after spending the larger portion of
their allowance upon amusements and self-indulgence, drive off the
payment of what they regard as their more _creditable_ debts till they
take their degree, under the idea that they will then be paid by their
fathers. This is a most unwarrantable,--sometimes a _cruel_,--drain upon
parental kindness. Poets may well speak of university expenses "pinching
parents black and blue[112:1]," when this is the case.

The majority of parents, as I have already said, do not send their sons
to the University without some degree of pecuniary inconvenience to
themselves. It is, indeed, hard upon them, when, in addition to an
annual allowance, which, probably, they have furnished not without
difficulty, they are called upon for a considerable sum, in order to
save their sons' credit--perhaps in order to enable him to take his
degree. For you are aware that an unpaid tradesman has the power, if he
thinks fit to exert it, of stopping the degree of a spendthrift
under-graduate. This power, I believe, is seldom, if ever, exercised.
But surely the being liable to it, through your own misconduct and
extravagance, would be attended with a feeling of painful humiliation.

I remain,
My dear Nephew,
Your affectionate Uncle.

FOOTNOTES:

[101:1] June, 1832.

[112:1] Cowper.

LETTER IX.

TEMPERANCE.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,

In the present state of society, it is, perhaps, less necessary than it
would have been formerly, that I should give you any caution or advice
on the subject of _temperance_. Five-and-thirty years ago, it was
customary to drink a good deal of wine after dinner, and young men at
Oxford were not behind-hand with the rest of the world in complying with
this bad custom.

It was _then_ generally the system, to initiate a freshman by making
him completely drunk. Scripture is by no means sufficiently listened to
_now_, but perhaps its warnings were less known and less regarded
_then_. The master of the revels and his abettors were ignorant, or
unmindful, of the threatenings denounced by the voice of
Inspiration,--_Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that
puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also_: and again--_Woe
unto them that are mighty t