The last eighteen months before I went to Cambridge, I was
placed, or rather placed myself, under the tuition of Mr.
Robert Collyer, rector of Warham, a living close to Holkham
in the gift of my brother Leicester. Between my Ely tutor
and myself there was but little sympathy. He was a man of
much refinement, but with not much indulgence for such
aberrant proclivities as mine. Without my knowledge, he
wrote to Mr. Ellice lamenting my secret recusancy, and its
moral dangers. Mr. Ellice came expressly from London, and
stayed a night at Ely. He dined with us in the cloisters,
and had a long private conversation with my tutor, and,
before he left, with me. I indignantly resented the
clandestine representations of Mr. S., and, without a word to
Mr. Ellice or to anyone else, wrote next day to Mr. Collyer
to beg him to take me in at Warham, and make what he could of
me, before I went to Cambridge. It may here be said that Mr.
Collyer had been my father's chaplain, and had lived at
Holkham for several years as family tutor to my brothers and
myself, as we in turn left the nursery. Mr. Collyer, upon
receipt of my letter, referred the matter to Mr. Ellice; with
his approval I was duly installed at Warham. Before
describing my time there, I must tell of an incident which
came near to affecting me in a rather important way.

My mother lived at Longford in Derbyshire, an old place, now
my home, which had come into the Coke family in James I.'s
reign, through the marriage of a son of Chief Justice Coke's
with the heiress of the De Langfords, an ancient family from
that time extinct. While staying there during my summer
holidays, my mother confided to me that she had had an offer