of an advowson when I should leave it, excepted. I wondered, on
reflection, that he should even have advised the rector to this: but
it was by affecting disinterestedness that he could most effectually
secure the remainder.

But the pain these thoughts occasioned was neither debilitating nor
durable. My sanguine self-confidence, though sometimes apalled, has
all my life prevented me from being subject to fits of permanent
chagrin, or melancholy. The recollection of my mother's passionate
promises, the shortness of the time, the suddenness of the change,
the family into which she had married, and the instability of a woman
that was my mother, drew a few sighs from me, and in these my gloom
evaporated. I returned cheerfully to my books and determined to visit
home no more, but while a student to make Oxford my home, and not
incur the frequently well-merited reproach of being a _term-trotter_.

As for my companion, Hector, whatever the intentions of the Squire his
father might be, he considered Oxford only as a place of dissipation,
and loved it for nothing but because he was here first let entirely
loose, and here first found comrades that were worthy to be his peers.
Most of his time was now spent in London, or in parties such as
himself and his intimates planned. I suffered little interruption from
him: he now and then indeed gave me an indolent call; but, as there
was no parity of pursuit, nor unity of sentiment between us, there
could be but little intercourse.

Little farther remarkable happened during the three years and ten
months of my residence in this city, except the incident that
occasioned my removal. By being a constant spectator of the debauchery
of the young, and the sensuality of the old, I conceived an increasing