nd lectures
of the various masters by whom he was surrounded. The poor boy, it
is true, deprived of physical exertion and naturally of a serious
disposition, required very little urging to second his father's wishes
for his mental improvement; and as the tutors were all of the orthodox
university calibre, who imagine that there is no knowledge (but
vanity) in any other works than those in which their own education has
consisted, so Henry Vavasour became at once the victor and victim of
Bentleys and Scaligers, word-weighers and metre-scanners, till, utterly
ignorant of everything which could have softened his temper, dignified
his misfortunes, and reconciled him to his lot, he was sinking fast
into the grave, soured by incessant pain into moroseness, envy, and
bitterness; exhausted by an unwholesome and useless application to
unprofitable studies; an excellent scholar (as it is termed), with
the worst regulated and worst informed mind of almost any of his
contemporaries equal to himself in the advantages of ability, original
goodness of disposition, and the costly and profuse expenditure of
education.

But the vain father, as he heard, on all sides, of his son's talents,
saw nothing sinister in their direction; and though the poor boy grew
daily more contracted in mind and broken in frame, Vavasour yet hugged
more and more closely to his breast the hope of ultimate cure for the
latter and future glory for the former. So he went on heaping money and
extending acres, and planting and improving and building and hoping and
anticipating, for one at whose very feet the grave was already dug!

But we left Mr. Brown in the study, making his bow and professions of
service to Mr. Vavasour Mordaunt and his son.

"Good day, honest Brown," said the former, a middle-sized and rather
stout man, with a well-powdered head, and a sharp, shrewd, and very
sallow countenance; "good day; have you brought any of the foreign
liqueurs you spoke of, for Mr. Henry?"

"Yes, sir, I have some curiously fine eau d'or and liqueur des files,
besides the marasquino and curacoa. The late Lady Waddilove honoured my
taste in these matters with her especial approbation."

"My dear boy," said Vavasour, turning to his son, who lay extended on
the couch, reading not the "Prometheus" (that most noble drama ever
created), but the notes upon it, "my dear boy, as you are fond of
liqueurs, I desired Brown to get some peculiarly fine; perhaps--"

"Pish!" said