many
little gentlemen are devoted to the ecclesiastical profession from
their tenderest years, and there is considerable emulation to procure
nominations for the foundation. It was originally intended for the
sons of poor and deserving clerics and laics, but many of the noble
governors of the Institution, with an enlarged and rather capricious
benevolence, selected all sorts of objects for their bounty. To get an
education for nothing, and a future livelihood and profession assured,
was so excellent a scheme that some of the richest people did not
disdain it; and not only great men's relations, but great men
themselves, sent their sons to profit by the chance--Right Rev.
prelates sent their own kinsmen or the sons of their clergy, while, on
the other hand, some great noblemen did not disdain to patronize the
children of their confidential servants--so that a lad entering this
establishment had every variety of youthful society wherewith to mingle.

Rawdon Crawley, though the only book which he studied was the Racing
Calendar, and though his chief recollections of polite learning were
connected with the floggings which he received at Eton in his early
youth, had that decent and honest reverence for classical learning
which all English gentlemen feel, and was glad to think that his son
was to have a provision for life, perhaps, and a certain opportunity of
becoming a scholar. And although his boy was his chief solace and
companion, and endeared to him by a thousand small ties, about which he
did not care to speak to his wife, who had all along shown the utmost
indifference to their son, yet Rawdon agreed at once to part with him
and to give up his own greatest comfort and benefit for the sake of the
welfare of the little lad. He did not know how fond he was of the
child until it became necessary to let him go away. When he was gone,
he felt more sad and downcast than he cared to own--far sadder than the
boy himself, who was happy enough to enter a new career and find
companions of his own age. Becky burst out laughing once or twice when
the Colonel, in his clumsy, incoherent way, tried to express his
sentimental sorrows at the boy's departure. The poor fellow felt that
his dearest pleasure and closest friend was taken from him. He looked
often and wistfully at the little vacant bed in his dressing-room,
where the child used to sleep. He missed him sadly of mornings and
tried in vain to walk in the park without him