yment are we, on
one side, ready to give the soft creatures! There is scarce a man
that reads this, but has administered pleasure in this fashion to his
womankind, and has treated them to the luxury of forgiving him. They
don't mind how they live themselves; but when the prodigal comes home
they make a rejoicing, and kill the fatted calf for him: and at the very
first hint that the sinner is returning, the kind angels prepare their
festival, and Mercy and Forgiveness go smiling out to welcome him. I
hope it may be so always for all: if we have only Justice to look to,
Heaven help us!

During the latter part of Pen's residence at the University of Oxbridge,
his uncle's partiality had greatly increased for the lad. The Major was
proud of Arthur, who had high spirits, frank manners, a good person, and
high gentleman-like bearing. It pleased the old London bachelor to see
Pen walking with the young patricians of his university, and he (who was
never known to entertain his friends, and whose stinginess had passed
into a sort of byword among some wags at the Club, who envied his many
engagements, and did not choose to consider his poverty) was charmed to
give his nephew and the young lords snug little dinners at his lodgings,
and to regale them with good claret, and his very best bons mots and
stories: some of which would be injured by the repetition, for the
Major's manner of telling them was incomparably neat and careful; and
others, whereof the repetition would do good to nobody. He paid his
court to their parents through the young men, and to himself as it were
by their company. He made more than one visit to Oxbridge, where the
young fellows were amused by entertaining the old gentleman, and gave
parties and breakfasts and fetes, partly to joke him and partly to do
him honour. He plied them with his stories. He made himself juvenile and
hilarious in the company of the young lords. He went to hear Pen at a
grand debate at the Union, crowed and cheered, and rapped his stick
in chorus with the cheers of the men, and was astounded at the boy's
eloquence and fire. He thought he had got a young Pitt for a nephew.
He had an almost paternal fondness for Pen. He wrote to the lad letters
with playful advice and the news of the town. He bragged about Arthur
at his Clubs, and introduced him with pleasure into his conversation;
saying, that, Egad, the young fellows were putting the old ones to the
wall; that the lads who were coming