less perils; in pranks with gunpowder; in leaping
from unusual heights into the ~82~~Thames. As a practical geographer
of London, and Heaven only knows how many miles round it, omniscient
Jackson himself could not know more.

All this, surely, was intrinsically right, wrong only in its direction.
Had he been sent to Woolwich, he might have come out, if not a rival of
the Duke of Richmond, then master of the ordnance, at least a first-rate
engineer. In economical arts and improvements, nothing less than
national, he might have been the Duke of Bridgewater of Ireland. Had the
sea been his profession, Lord Mulgrave might have been less alone in the
rare union of science and enterprise.

But all this capability of usefulness and fair fame, was brought to
nought by the obstinate absurdity of the people about him; nothing could
wean them from Westminster. His grandfather Roan, or Rohan, an old man
who saved much money in Rathbone-place, and spent but little of it
every evening at Slaughter's coffee-house, holding out large promise to
property, so became absolute; and absolute nonsense was his conduct to
his grandson. He persevered in the school; where, if a boy disaffects
book-knowledge, his books are only bought and sold. And after
Westminster, when the old man died, as if solicitous that every thing
about his grave, but poppy and mandragora, should grow downwards,
his will declared his grandson the heir, but not to inherit till he
graduated at Cambridge.

To Cambridge therefore he went; where having pursued his studies, as it
is called, in a ratio inverse and descending, he might have gone on from
bad to worse; and so, as many do, putting a grave face upon it, he might
have had his degree. But his animal spirits, and love of bustle, could
not go off thus undistinguished; and so, after coolly attempting
to throw a tutor into the Cam--after shaking all Cambridge from its
propriety by a night's frolic, in which he climbed the sign-posts, and
changed the principal signs, he was rusticated; till the good-humour of
the university returning, he was re-admitted, and enabled to satisfy his
grandfather's will!

After that, he behaved with much gallantry in America; and with good
address in that very disagreeable affair, the contested marriage of his
sister with Mr. Beresford the clergyman.

Indeed, through the intercourse of private life he was very amiable. The
same suavity of speech, courteous attentions, and general good-natu