times accompanied by a military
escort, but were more frequently left to their devices, and evil tidings
of disaster to the Allies--often groundless, but not less alarming--kept
the whole party on the alert, and proved, naturally, very exciting to
the lad, who under such strange and dramatic circumstances gained his
first experience of life abroad. Lord John had, however, taken with him
his Virgil, Tacitus, and Cicero, and now and then, forgetful of the
turmoil around him, he improved his acquaintance with the classics. He
also studied the Spanish language, with the result that he acquired an
excellent conversational knowledge of it. The lad had opinions and the
courage of them, and when he saw the cause of the Spanish beginning to
fail he was exasperated by the apathy of the Whigs at home, and
accordingly, with the audacity of youth, wrote to his father:--

'I take the liberty of informing you and your Opposition friends that
the French have not conquered the whole of Spain.... Lord Grey's speech
appears to me either a mere attempt to plague Ministers for a few hours
or a declaration against the principle of the people's right to depose
an infamous despot.... It seems to be the object of the Opposition to
prove that Spain is conquered, and that the Spaniards like being robbed
and murdered.' It seems, therefore, that Lord John, even in his teens,
was inclined to be dogmatic and oracular, but the soundness of his
judgment, in this particular instance at least, is not less remarkable
than his sturdy mental independence. Like his friend Sydney Smith, he
was already becoming a lover of justice and of sympathy towards the
oppressed.

[Sidenote: THE QUESTION OF A UNIVERSITY]

In the summer of 1809, after a short journey to Cadiz, Lord Holland and
his party crossed the plains of Estremadura on mules to Lisbon and
embarked for England, though not without an unexpected delay caused by a
slight attack of fever on the part of Lord John. On the voyage back Lord
Holland and his secretary, Mr. Allen, pointed out to him the advantages
of going to Edinburgh for the next winter, and in a letter to his
father, dated Spithead, August 10, 1809, he adds: 'They say that I am
yet too young to go to an English university; that I should learn more
there [Edinburgh] in the meantime than I should anywhere else.'

He goes on to state that he is convinced by their arguments, in spite of
the fact that he had previously expressed 'so much disl