testimony to the early and constant uniformity of my sentiments. It
will indeed be replied, that I am not a competent judge; that
pleasure is incompatible with pain; that joy is excluded from
sickness; and that the felicity of a schoolboy consists in the
perpetual motion of thoughtless and playful agility, in which I was
never qualified to excel. My name, it is most true, could never be
enrolled among the sprightly race, the idle progeny of Eton or
Westminster,
"Who foremost may delight to cleave,
With pliant arm, the glassy wave,
Or urge the flying ball."
The poet may gaily describe the short hours of recreation; but he
forgets the daily tedious labours of the school, which is approached
each morning with anxious and reluctant steps.

A traveller, who visits Oxford or Cambridge, is surprised and
edified by the apparent order and tranquillity that prevail in the
seats of the English muses. In the most celebrated universities of
Holland, Germany, and Italy, the students, who swarm from different
countries, are loosely dispersed in private lodgings at the houses
of the burghers: they dress according to their fancy and fortune;
and in the intemperate quarrels of youth and wine, their swords,
though less frequently than of old, are sometimes stained with each
other's blood. The use of arms is banished from our English
universities; the uniform habit of the academics, the square cap,
and black gown, is adapted to the civil and even clerical
profession; and from the doctor in divinity to the under-graduate,
the degrees of learning and age are externally distinguished.
Instead of being scattered in a town, the students of Oxford and
Cambridge are united in colleges; their maintenance is provided at