miration was soon absorbed
in the job in hand, and he turned away--to scribble to the Minister. Of
the younger portion of the family I shall say but little. Children are
happiest in the nursery, and there I leave them. I had two sisters,
sweet little creatures, one with black eyes and the other with blue.
This is enough for their description. My four brothers were four rough,
bold, well-looking animals, all intended for ambassadors, admirals,
generals, and secretaries of state--for my father had too long tasted of
the honey of official life to think that there was any other food for a
gentleman in the world. He had been suckled for too many years at those
breasts, which, like the bosom of the great Egyptian goddess, pour the
stream of life through whole generations of hangers-on, to believe that
any other fount of existence was to be named but the civil list. I am
strongly inclined to surmise that he would have preferred a pencil,
purloined from the Treasury, to all the cedars of Lebanon.

It may be presumed that I was destined for public life--in other words,
to live on the public; and, to prepare me for the performance of a part,
alternately menial and master--supple as the slave, and superb as the
minister--I was sent to Eton. At this great school of the aristocracy,
would-be and real--barons and dukes _in esse_, and the herald's office
alone, or bedlam, knows what _in posse_, I remained for the customary
number of years. If whoever does me the honour to read these pages,
hates the history of schooldays as much as I do their memory, he will
easily pardon my passing by the topic altogether. If the first purpose
of all great public institutions is to stand still; the great schools of
England, fifty years ago, were righteous adherents to their contract;
they never moved. The world might whirl round them as it would; there
remained the grey milestones, only measuring the speed with which every
thing on the road passed them. This, they say, has largely and
fortunately changed in later years. But the change must proceed; the
venerable cripples must throw by their crutches, and try the effect of
flesh and blood. Flogging and fagging, are the education for a footman;
they disgrace the common sense, and offend the feelings of a manly
people. The pugilist must be expelled, and the puppy must follow him.
The detestable grossness of classical impurity, must be no longer the
price at which Latin "quantities" are to be learned. The