misfortune '_valde deflendus_.' In other
respects the vicinity was charming; and it afforded an ample supply of
woods and hedgerow trees to insure a sufficient stock of carrion crows,
jackdaws, jays, magpies, brown owls, kestrels, merlins, and
sparrow-hawks, for the benefit of natural history and my own instruction
and amusement."

In 1796 Waterton left Tudhoe school and went to Stonyhurst College in
Lancashire. It was a country house of the picturesque style of King
James I., which had just been made over by Mr. Weld of Lulworth to the
Jesuits expelled from Liege. The country round Stonyhurst is varied by
hills and streams, and there are mountains at no great distance.

"Whernside, Pendle Hill, and Ingleboro',
Three higher hills you'll not find England thoro',"

as they are described, with equal disregard of exact mensuration and of
rhythm, in a local rhyme which Waterton learned. Curlew used to fly by
in flocks, and the country people had also a rhyme about the curlew:--

"Be she white or be she black,
She carries sixpence on her back,"

which Waterton used to say showed how our ancestors valued the bird at
table.

At Stonyhurst he read a good deal of Latin and of English literature, and
acquired a taste for writing Latin verse. He always looked back on his
education there with satisfaction, and in after-life often went to visit
the college. Throughout life he never drank wine, and this fortunate
habit was the result of the good advice of one of his teachers:--

"My master was Father Clifford, a first cousin of the noble lord of that
name. He had left the world, and all its alluring follies, that he might
serve Almighty God more perfectly, and work his way with more security up
to the regions of eternal bliss. After educating those entrusted to his
charge with a care and affection truly paternal, he burst a blood-vessel,
and retired to Palermo for the benefit of a warmer climate. There he
died the death of the just, in the habit of St. Ignatius.

"One day, when I was in the class of poetry, and which was about two
years before I left the college for good and all, he called me up to his
room. 'Charles,' said he to me, in a tone of voice perfectly
irresistible, 'I have long been studying your disposition, and I clearly
foresee that nothing will keep you at home. You will journey into
far-distant countries, where you will be exposed to many dangers. There
is only one way for you to es