"How strange are my thoughts!--The reading of the song of Milton, Sabrina fair,' has brought back upon me--I know not how or why--the happiest, perhaps, days of my life (always excepting, here and there, a Harrow holiday in the two latter summers of my stay there) when living at Cambridge with Edward Noel Long, afterwards of the Guards,--who, after having served honourably in the expedition to Copenhagen (of which two or three thousand scoundrels yet survive in plight and pay), was drowned early in 1809, on his passage to Lisbon with his regiment in the St. George transport, which was run foul of in the night by another transport. We were rival swimmers--fond of riding--reading--and of conviviality. We had been at Harrow together; but--_there_, at least--his was a less boisterous spirit than mine. I was always cricketing--rebelling--fighting--_row_ing (from _row_, not _boat_-rowing, a different practice), and in all manner of mischiefs; while he was more sedate and polished. At Cambridge--both of Trinity--my spirit rather softened, or his roughened, for we became very great friends. The description of Sabrina's seat reminds me of our rival feats in _diving_. Though Cam's is not a very translucent wave, it was fourteen feet deep, where we used to dive for, and pick up--having thrown them in on purpose--plates, eggs, and even shillings. I remember, in particular, there was the stump of a tree (at least ten or twelve feet deep) in the bed of the river, in a spot where we bathed most commonly, round which I used to cling, and 'wonder how the devil I came there.' "Our evenings we passed in music (he was musical, and played on more than one instrument, flute and violoncello), in which I was audience; and I think that our chief beverage was soda-water. In the day we rode, bathed, and lounged, reading occasionally. I remember our buying, with vast alacrity, Moore's new quarto (in 1806), and reading it together in the evenings. "We only passed the summer together;--Long had gone into the Guards during the year I passed in Notts, away from college. _His_ friendship, and a violent, though _pure_, love and passion--which held me at the same period--were the then romance of the most romantic period of my life. * * * * * "I remember that, in the spring of 1809, H---- laughed at my being distressed at Long's death, and amused himself with making epigrams upon his name, which was susceptible of a pun--_Long, short_, &c. But three years after, he had ample leisure to repent it, when our mutual friend and his, H----'s, particular friend, Charles Matthews, was drowned also, and he himself was as much affected by a similar calamity. But _I_ did not pay him back in puns and epigrams, for I valued Matthews too much myself to do so; and, even if I had not, I should have respected his griefs.