ned that I should be either a lawyer,
physician, or divine; and I wrote to my father that I thought I had
stayed there long enough for a gentleman, and with his leave I desired
to give him a visit.

During my stay at Oxford, though I passed through the proper exercises
of the house, yet my chief reading was upon history and geography,
as that which pleased my mind best, and supplied me with ideas most
suitable to my genius; by one I understood what great actions had been
done in the world, and by the other I understood where they had been
done.

My father readily complied with my desire of coming home; for besides
that he thought, as I did, that three years' time at the university
was enough, he also most passionately loved me, and began to think of
my settling near him.

At my arrival I found myself extraordinarily caressed by my father,
and he seemed to take a particular delight in my conversation. My
mother, who lived in perfect union with him both in desires and
affection, received me very passionately. Apartments were provided for
me by myself, and horses and servants allowed me in particular.

My father never went a-hunting, an exercise he was exceeding fond of,
but he would have me with him; and it pleased him when he found me
like the sport. I lived thus, in all the pleasures 'twas possible for
me to enjoy, for about a year more, when going out one morning with my
father to hunt a stag, and having had a very hard chase, and gotten
a great way off from home, we had leisure enough to ride gently back;
and as we returned my father took occasion to enter into a serious
discourse with me concerning the manner of my settling in the world.

He told me, with a great deal of passion, that he loved me above all
the rest of his children, and that therefore he intended to do very
well for me; and that my eldest brother being already married
and settled, he had designed the same for me, and proposed a very
advantageous match for me, with a young lady of very extraordinary
fortune and merit, and offered to make a settlement of L2000 per annum
on me, which he said he would purchase for me without diminishing his
paternal estate.

There was too much tenderness in this discourse not to affect me
exceedingly. I told him I would perfectly resign myself unto his
disposal. But as my father had, together with his love for me, a very
nice judgment in his discourse, he fixed his eyes very attentively on
me, and though my answer