through Eton before people were generally up.  The night had been heavy and lowering, but towards the morning it had changed to a slight frost, and the ground and the trees were now covered with rime.  I slipped through Eton unobserved; washed myself, and as far as possible adjusted my dress, at a little public-house in Windsor; and about eight o’clock went down towards Pote’s.  On my road I met some junior boys, of whom I made inquiries.  An Etonian is always a gentleman; and, in spite of my shabby habiliments, they answered me civilly.  My friend Lord --- was gone to the University of ---.  “Ibi omnis effusus labor!”  I had, however, other friends at Eton; but it is not to all that wear that name in prosperity that a man is willing to present himself in distress.  On recollecting myself, however, I asked for the Earl of D---, to whom (though my acquaintance with him was not so intimate as with some others) I should not have shrunk from presenting myself under any circumstances.  He was still at Eton, though I believe on the wing for Cambridge.  I called, was received kindly, and asked to breakfast.

Here let me stop for a moment to check my reader from any erroneous conclusions.  Because I have had occasion incidentally to speak of various patrician friends, it must not be supposed that I have myself any pretension to rank and high blood.  I thank God that I have not.  I am the son of a plain English merchant, esteemed during his life for his great integrity, and strongly attached to literary pursuits (indeed, he was himself, anonymously, an author).  If he had lived it was expected that he would have been very rich; but dying prematurely, he left no more than about £30,000 amongst seven different claimants.  My mother I may mention with honour, as still more highly gifted; for though unpretending to the name and honours of a literary woman, I shall presume to call her (what many literary women are not) an intellectual woman; and I believe that if ever her letters should be collected and published, they would be thought generally to exhibit as much strong and masculine sense, delivered in as pure “mother English,” racy and fresh with idiomatic graces, as any in our language—hardly excepting those of Lady M. W. Montague.  These are my honours of descent, I have no other; and I have thanked God sincerely that I have not, because, in my judgment, a station which raises a man too eminently above the level of his fellow-creatures is not the most favourable to moral or to intellectual qualities.

Lord D--- placed before me a most magnificent breakfast.  It was really so; but in my eyes it seemed trebly magnificent, from being the first regular meal, the first “good man’s table,” that I had sate down to for months.  Strange to say, however, I could scarce eat anything.  On the day when I first received my £10 bank-note I had gone to a baker’s shop and bought a couple of rolls; this very shop I had two months or six weeks before surveyed with an eagerness of desire which it was almost humiliating to me to recollect.  I remembered the story about Otway, and feared that there might be danger in eating too rapidly.  But I had no need for alarm; my appetite was quite sunk, and I became sick before I had eaten half of what I had bought.  This effect from eating what approached to a meal I continued to feel for weeks; or, when I did not experience any nausea, part of what I ate was rejected, sometimes with acidity, sometimes immediately and without any acidity.  On the present occasion, at Lord D-’s table, I found myself not at all better than usual, and in the midst of luxuries I had no appetite.  I had, however, unfortunately, at all times a craving for wine; I explained my situation, therefore, to Lord D---, and gave him a short account of my late sufferings, at which he expressed great compassion, and called for wine.  This gave me a momentary relief and pleasure; and on all occasions when I had an opportunity I never failed to drink wine, which I worshipped then as I have since worshipped opium.  I am convinced, however, that this indulgence in wine contributed to strengthen my malady, for the tone of my stomach was apparently quite sunk, and by a better regimen it might sooner, and perhaps effectually, have been revived.  I hope that it was not from this love of wine that I lingered in the neighbourhood of my Eton friends; I persuaded myself then that it was from reluctance to ask of Lord D---, on whom I was conscious I had not sufficient claims, the particular service in quest of which I had come down to Eton.  I was, however unwilling to lose my journey, and—I asked it.  Lord D---, whose good nature was unbounded, and which, in regard to myself, had been measured rather by his compassion perhaps for my condition, and his knowledge of my intimacy with some of his relatives, than by an over-rigorous inquiry into the extent of my own direct claims, faltered, nevertheless, at this request.  He acknowledged that he did not like to have any dealings with money-lenders, and feared lest such a transaction might come to the ears of his connexions.  Moreover, he doubted whether his signature, whose expectations were so much more bounded than those of ---, would avail with my unchristian friends.  However, he did not wish, as it seemed, to mortify me by an absolute refusal; for after a little consideration he promised, under certain conditions which he pointed out, to give his security.  Lord D--- was at this time not eighteen years of age; but I have often doubted, on recollecting since the good sense and prudence which on this occasion he mingled with so much urbanity of manner (an urbanity which in him wore the grace of youthful sincerity), whether any statesman—the oldest and the most accomplished in diplomacy—could have acquitted himself better under the same circumstances.  Most people, indeed, cannot be addressed on such a business without surveying you with looks as austere and unpropitious as those of a Saracen’s head.