***'s, and, after remaining at home for about three months in company with my brother Frederick, returned for the first time from sea, I went to Mr. Blomfield's in March, 1815. I staid there till near the time of my first going to Cambridge, which was in the summer of 1817. Simplicity and purity of mind, alas! are not regained with the readiness with which they are lost: the falling into bad company and consenting to it will utterly ruin all innocence. The removal of occasions may prevent the growth of evil habits and the farther increase of corruption; but this alone will not restore that blessed ignorance of evil which was no longer mine. My residence with Blomfield was, however, the means to me of great good. Here I was confirmed in that love for study and knowledge of which I have already noticed the commencement. He had himself, as is well known, though still young, gained a reputation for classical learning among the scholars of England and the Continent; and his example and conversations inspired me with desires for the like distinctions, to which he gave all possible encouragement. This I reckon to have been a considerable advantage to my religious welfare; for, although the motive I set before me was merely worldly, and the subjects which I studied had little of a good and much of a bad tendency, as must needs be the case with pagan literature, yet, by gaining a habit for study, I was directed in a line widely distinct from the most vicious of the society through which I was afterwards to pass; and, by being a reading man at Cambridge, I was saved from much perversion." [Footnote 1: This was written in 1836. See Preface. Dr. Blomfield died in 1857.] We shall be pardoned for interrupting the course of this interesting narrative, by inserting an anecdote, which shows how unchanged was his opinion on the merits of pagan literature. In a conversation with his religious companions, shortly before he died, he happened to say something about the discoveries of Cardinal Mai among the Bobbio {20} manuscripts. Some one remarked that it was nothing less than Vandalism for the old monks to erase one of the classic authors, and write some crude chronicle or other over it. "Well," replied Father Ignatius, "I suppose the monks had as much respect for Virgil and Ovid as the angels have." To resume.