e French and Italian. The old
book was not of much value; I derived some benefit from it, however, and,
conning it intensely, at the end of a few weeks obtained some insight
into the structure of these two languages. At length I had learnt all
that the book was capable of informing me, yet was still far from the
goal to which it had promised to conduct me. 'I wish I had a master!' I
exclaimed; and the master was at hand. In an old court of the old town
lived a certain elderly personage, perhaps sixty, or thereabouts; he was
rather tall, and something of a robust make, with a countenance in which
bluffness was singularly blended with vivacity and grimace; and with a
complexion which would have been ruddy, but for a yellow hue which rather
predominated. His dress consisted of a snuff-coloured coat and drab
pantaloons, the former evidently seldom subjected to the annoyance of a
brush, and the latter exhibiting here and there spots of something which,
if not grease, bore a strong resemblance to it; add to these articles an
immense frill, seldom of the purest white, but invariably of the finest
French cambric, and you have some idea of his dress. He had rather a
remarkable stoop, but his step was rapid and vigorous, and as he hurried
along the streets, he would glance to the right and left with a pair of
big eyes like plums, and on recognising any one would exalt a pair of
grizzled eyebrows, and slightly kiss a tawny and ungloved hand. At
certain hours of the day he might be seen entering the doors of female
boarding-schools, generally with a book in his hand, and perhaps another
just peering from the orifice of a capacious back pocket; and at a
certain season of the year he might be seen, dressed in white, before the
altar of a certain small popish chapel, chanting from the breviary in
very intelligible Latin, or perhaps reading from the desk in utterly
unintelligible English. Such was my preceptor in the French and Italian
tongues. 'Exul sacerdos; vone banished priest. I came into England
twenty-five year ago, "my dear."'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MONSIEUR DANTE--CONDEMNED MUSKET--SPORTING--SWEET RIVULET--THE EARL'S
HOME--THE POOL--THE SONOROUS VOICE--WHAT DOST THOU READ?--THE MAN OF
PEACE--OF ZOHAR AND MISHNA--THE MONEY-CHANGERS

So I studied French and Italian under the tuition of the banished priest,
to whose house I went regularly every evening to receive instruction. I
made considerable progress in the ac