ecovery was slow. A ball had struck me on the forehead; and, though
it had luckily glanced off, it had produced a contusion which long
threatened dangerous consequences. For a month, I remained nearly
insensible. At length I began to move, health returned, the sea-breeze
gave me new sensations of life; and, but for one circumstance, I should
have felt all the enjoyment of that most delightful of all
contrasts--between the languor of a sick bed, and the renewed pouring of
vitality through the frame.

On my first awaking, I found an accumulation of letters on my table.
Some were the mere common-places of correspondence; some were from
sporting friends in the neighbourhood of the castle, detailing with due
exactness the achievements of their dogs and horses; three were from the
Horse Guards at successive intervals of a week--the first announcing
that my commission in the Guards had received the signatures of the
proper authorities; the second, giving me a peremptory order to join
immediately; and the third, formally announcing, that, as I had neither
joined, nor assigned any reason for my absence, my commission had been
cancelled!

This was an unexpected blow, and, in my state of weakness might have
been a fatal one, but for my having found, at the bottom of the heap, a
letter in the handwriting of Vincent. This excellent man, as if he had
anticipated my vexations, wrote in a style singularly adapted to meet
them at the moment. After slight and almost gay remarks on country
occurrences, and some queries relative to my ideas of London; he touched
on the difficulties which beset the commencement of every career, and
the supreme necessity of patience, and a determination to be cheerful
under all.

"One rule is absolutely essential," wrote he, "never to mourn over the
past, or mope over the future. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof,' is a maxim of incomparable wisdom. Never think of the failures
of yesterday, but to avoid them to-morrow, and never speculate on the
failures of to-morrow, but to remember that you have outlived the
failures of to-day. The French philosophers are now preaching around the
world, that knowledge is power, and so it is, but only as gunpowder is
power; a dangerous invention which blew up the inventor. It requires to
be wisely managed. English experience will tell you, more to the
purpose, that 'perseverance is power;' for with it, all things can be
done, without it nothing. I remember, in