them himself more
frankly. And as he looks back, in calmer days, upon this period of his
life, which he thought so unhappy, he can see that his own pride and
vanity caused no small part of the mortifications which he attributed to
others' ill will. The world deals good-naturedly with good-natured people,
and I never knew a sulky misanthropist who quarrelled with it, but it was
he, and not it, that was in the wrong. Tom Tusher gave Harry plenty of
good advice on this subject, for Tom had both good sense and good humour;
but Mr. Harry chose to treat his senior with a great deal of superfluous
disdain and absurd scorn, and would by no means part from his darling
injuries, in which, very likely, no man believed but himself. As for
honest Doctor Bridge, the tutor found, after a few trials of wit with the
pupil, that the younger man was an ugly subject for wit, and that the
laugh was often turned against him. This did not make tutor and pupil any
better friends; but had, so far, an advantage for Esmond, that Mr. Bridge
was induced to leave him alone; and so long as he kept his chapels, and
did the college exercises required of him, Bridge was content not to see
Harry's glum face in his class, and to leave him to read and sulk for
himself in his own chamber.

A poem or two in Latin and English, which were pronounced to have some
merit, and a Latin oration (for Mr. Esmond could write that language
better than pronounce it), got him a little reputation both with the
authorities of the University and amongst the young men, with whom he
began to pass for more than he was worth. A few victories over their
common enemy Mr. Bridge, made them incline towards him, and look upon him
as the champion of their order against the seniors. Such of the lads as he
took into his confidence, found him not so gloomy and haughty as his
appearance led them to believe; and Don Dismallo, as he was called, became
presently a person of some little importance in his college, and was, as
he believes, set down by the seniors there as rather a dangerous
character.

Don Dismallo was a stanch young Jacobite, like the rest of his family;
gave himself many absurd airs of loyalty; used to invite young friends to
burgundy, and give the king's health on King James's birthday; wore black
on the day of his abdication; fasted on the anniversary of King William's
coronation; and performed a thousand absurd antics, of which he smiles now
to think.

These follies cau