solicitous that he should choose for himself a profession, offering to his choice either the army or law--he was calculated to shine in either of these professions--for, like many others of his countrymen, he was brave and eloquent; but he did not wish to shackle himself with a profession. As, however, his minority did not terminate till he was three-and-twenty, of which age he wanted nearly two years, during which he would be entirely dependent on his guardians, he deemed it expedient to conceal, to a certain degree, his sentiments, temporising with the old gentlemen, with whom, notwithstanding his many irregularities, he was a great favourite, and at whose death he expected to come into a yet greater property than that which he inherited from his parents. Such is a brief account of Francis Ardry--of my friend Francis Ardry; for the acquaintance, commenced in the singular manner with which the reader is acquainted, speedily ripened into a friendship which endured through many long years of separation, and which still endures certainly on my part, and on his--if he lives; but it is many years since I have heard from Francis Ardry. And yet many people would have thought it impossible for our friendship to have lasted a week, for in many respects no two people could be more dissimilar. He was an Irishman, I an Englishman; he fiery, enthusiastic and open-hearted, I neither fiery, enthusiastic nor open-hearted; he fond of pleasure and dissipation, I of study and reflection. Yet it is of such dissimilar elements that the most lasting friendships are formed: we do not like counterparts of ourselves. "Two great talkers will not travel far together," is a Spanish saying; I will add, "Nor two silent people"; we naturally love our opposites. So Francis Ardry came to see me, and right glad I was to see him, for I had just flung my books and papers aside, and was wishing for a little social converse; and when we had conversed for some little time together, Francis Ardry proposed that we should go to the play to see Kean; so we went to the play, and saw--not Kean, who at that time was ashamed to show himself, but--a man who was not ashamed to show himself, and who people said was a much better man than Kean--as I have no doubt he was--though whether he was a better actor I cannot say, for I never saw Kean. {210}