, that they rather inflamed and increased its violence. The library
at Waverley-Honour, a large Gothic room, with double arches and a
gallery, contained such a miscellaneous and extensive collection of
volumes as had been assembled together, during the course of two hundred
years, by a family which had been always wealthy, and inclined, of
course, as a mark of splendour, to furnish their shelves with the
current literature of the day, without much scrutiny, or nicety of
discrimination. Throughout this ample realm Edward was permitted to
roam at large. His tutor had his own studies; and church politics and
controversial divinity, together with a love of learned ease, though
they did not withdraw his attention at stated times from the progress
of his patron's presumptive heir, induced him readily to grasp at any
apology for not extending a strict and regulated survey towards his
general studies. Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and,
like his sister Miss Rachel Waverley, he held the common doctrine, that
idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere
tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye is in itself a useful
and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas
or doctrines they may happen to convey. With a desire of amusement,
therefore, which better discipline might soon have converted into a
thirst for knowledge, young Waverley drove through the sea of books,
like a vessel without a pilot or a rudder. Nothing perhaps increases by
indulgence more than a desultory habit of reading, especially under such
opportunities of gratifying it. I believe one reason why such numerous
instances of erudition occur among the lower ranks is, that, with the
same powers of mind, the poor student is limited to a narrow circle
for indulging his passion for books, and must necessarily make himself
master of the few he possesses ere he can acquire more. Edward, on the
contrary, like the epicure who only deigned to take a single morsel from
the sunny side of a peach, read no volume a moment after it ceased to
excite his curiosity or interest; and it necessarily happened, that the
habit of seeking only this sort of gratification rendered it daily more
difficult of attainment, till the passion for reading, like other strong
appetites, produced by indulgence a sort of satiety.

Ere he attained this indifference, however, he had read, and stored in
a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curiou