and worse than wasted. From my passion for shooting and for
hunting, and, when this failed, for riding across country, I got
into a sporting set, including some dissipated low-minded young
men. We used often to dine together in the evening, though these
dinners often included men of a higher stamp, and we sometimes
drank too much, with jolly singing and playing at cards
afterwards. I know that I ought to feel ashamed of days and
evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very
pleasant, and we were all in the highest spirits, I cannot help
looking back to these times with much pleasure.

But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a widely
different nature. I was very intimate with Whitley (Rev. C.
Whitley, Hon. Canon of Durham, formerly Reader in Natural
Philosophy in Durham University.), who was afterwards Senior
Wrangler, and we used continually to take long walks together.
He inoculated me with a taste for pictures and good engravings,
of which I bought some. I frequently went to the Fitzwilliam
Gallery, and my taste must have been fairly good, for I certainly
admired the best pictures, which I discussed with the old
curator. I read also with much interest Sir Joshua Reynolds'
book. This taste, though not natural to me, lasted for several
years, and many of the pictures in the National Gallery in London
gave me much pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in
me a sense of sublimity.

I also got into a musical set, I believe by means of my warm-
hearted friend, Herbert (The late John Maurice Herbert, County
Court Judge of Cardiff and the Monmouth Circuit.), who took a
high wrangler's degree. From associating with these men, and