"I made some good progress during this year, but I should have done much more had I been constantly regular. I must have suffered great loss by my interruptions, as I find by my journal that for about four weeks at the end of the long vacation, when I had come home and was taken up with shooting, I did not make one hour's study; and two more long intervals of cessation from reading took place in the Christmas and Easter vacations, when a little steady application, if it were but for three hours a-day, would have kept my mind attentive, and given me a great advantage. After my first examination, I entertained some thoughts {49} of waiving my privilege of taking an honorary degree, and going through the Senate House examinations with a view to University honours; but I lost all wish to remain at Cambridge towards the end of the second autumn. I was at times quite disgusted with the place, for such reasons as I have stated; besides which, my father and mother had made a plan, which pleased me greatly, of going for a year on the Continent, in which I was to accompany them. My brother Frederick, who was come home about this time, was to be of the party likewise, and happy was I in the prospect of being again some time in his company; but as an opportunity occurred for him to go to South America, with Sir Thomas Hardy, with the hope of being made Commander, this professional advantage was justly preferred." Some of the heads at Cambridge as well as Lady Spencer urged him at this time to stand for a fellowship, but he gave up the idea, and it ended in his joining a new club they had formed--the Eton club. These clubs at the Universities are looked upon with no great favour by proctors and others who have charge of the morals of the students. Their dinners entail great expenses on the members, and they end as the first meeting did in his case: "They all made an enormous row, and I too, by the bye." He came to spend the Christmas of 1818 at Althorp, and closes the year with a succession of parties, Pope Joan, and bookbinding. There is one little incident recorded in his journal at this time which gives us a perfect insight into his character. One might expect that at this age, nineteen, he would be very romantic and dreamy, and that we should find many allusions to those topics which engross so much of the time of novel-reading youths and maidens nowadays. Nothing of the sort. There is an affair of the heart, but his conduct in it, with his remarks on it, are worthy of a sexagenarian. At a party, which took place at his father's, he dances with various young ladies, among the rest a certain Miss A., who, he says, "was a great flame of mine two years ago; she is not so pretty as I thought her then, but she is a delightful partner. I was again in love, but not violently to-night." Two or three days after this, he is at another party, and {50} dances with a new set of partners to the extent of three quadrilles.