ery likely had but little favour from any one of them;
whereas Tom Tusher, who had no more turn for poetry than a ploughboy,
nevertheless, by a dogged perseverance and obsequiousness in courting the
divine Calliope, got himself a prize, and some credit in the University,
and a fellowship at his college, as a reward for his scholarship. In this
time of Mr. Esmond's life, he got the little reading which he ever could
boast of, and passed a good part of his days greedily devouring all the
books on which he could lay hand. In this desultory way the works of most
of the English, French, and Italian poets came under his eyes, and he had
a smattering of the Spanish tongue likewise, besides the ancient
languages, of which, at least of Latin, he was a tolerable master.

Then, about midway in his University career, he fell to reading for the
profession to which worldly prudence rather than inclination called him,
and was perfectly bewildered in theological controversy. In the course of
his reading (which was neither pursued with that seriousness or that
devout mind which such a study requires), the youth found himself, at the
end of one month, a Papist, and was about to proclaim his faith; the next
month a Protestant, with Chillingworth; and the third a sceptic, with
Hobbs and Bayle. Whereas honest Tom Tusher never permitted his mind to
stray out of the prescribed University path, accepted the Thirty-nine
Articles with all his heart, and would have signed and sworn to other
nine-and-thirty with entire obedience. Harry's wilfulness in this matter,
and disorderly thoughts and conversation, so shocked and afflicted his
senior, that there grew up a coldness and estrangement between them, so
that they became scarce more than mere acquaintances, from having been
intimate friends when they came to college first. Politics ran high, too,
at the University; and here, also, the young men were at variance. Tom
professed himself, albeit a High Churchman, a strong King William's-man;
whereas Harry brought his family Tory politics to college with him, to
which he must add a dangerous admiration for Oliver Cromwell, whose side,
or King James's by turns, he often chose to take in the disputes which the
young gentlemen used to hold in each other's rooms, where they debated on
the state of the nation, crowned and deposed kings, and toasted past and
present heroes or beauties in flagons of college ale.

Thus, either from the circumstances of his birt