ered the college, I had been carelessly
placed far above my acquirements; and constant flogging was
inevitable, for a year or two at least, until, perhaps, by close
application, I had made myself equal to my daily tasks. But this was a
prospect by far too distant to be entertained by a boy of nine years
old; for it is the ambition of a boy not to be flogged at all--not as
little as possible.

An objection to sending a boy early to Eton is, that should he have
the hardihood to brave frequent punishment, he may be very nearly as
idle as he pleases; and at this early age, too, he has not the sense
to apply himself to study of his own will, and that, too, while
surrounded by so many temptations to the contrary.

One flogging, without the slightest stigma attaching to it, or
reprimand, is the certain penalty of failure in his task. With
hardihood or without it, I then had no chance, though, at all events,
I acquired it, and that too, to such a degree, and I deemed the
penalty so trivial, that I henceforth enjoyed a delightful sense of
freedom and independence in its way.

If I bestowed a thought on the subject at all, it was to be flogged
not more than once in a day, if I could conveniently do otherwise.

Yet, in an irrational mood, I would read--I would frequently steal off
to some quiet spot in the neighbourhood, and employ myself in various
histories, of which reading I was always very fond. My favourite
retreat was up in an old pollarded willow-tree, secure from fagging,
and therefore enjoying the distant voices in the playing-fields,
delightfully contrasting with the quiet splash of the trout leaping in
the river beneath me.

Thus I obtained a respectably accurate knowledge of the Roman,
Grecian, and English histories, and a somewhat precocious insight too
of the characters of their various and prominent actors.

As for the heroes of the fabulous ages, I was completely conversant
with each of their circumstances, and for this reason. I must
acknowledge, that, as the hour approached for punishment, I was apt to
be troubled in mind, similarly to a patient about to undergo a
disagreeable operation; but no sooner had I opened Lempriere's
classical dictionary, than every unpleasing anticipation was
dissolved, and I became totally unconscious of vulgar realities, and
absorbed in its poetical but unequivocal immorality.

CHAPTER VI.

In spite of the ingenuity I expended, in order to imbibe as small a
quantit