there are many weeks in the thirty which will demand no fire at all. Groceries and wine, which are all that remain, I cannot calculate. But suppose we allow for the first a shilling a day, which will be exactly ten guineas for thirty weeks; and for the second, nothing at all. Then the extras, in addition to the college bills, will stand thus: Washing for thirty weeks, at the privileged rate £6 6 0 Candles 2 5 0 Fire 5 5 0 Groceries 10 10 0 ----------- £24 6 0 The college bills, therefore, will be £66: 9s.; the extras, not furnished by the college, will be about £24: 6s.,--making a total amount of £90: 15s. And for this sum, annually, a man may defray _every_ expense incident to an Oxford life, through a period of weeks (viz., thirty) something more than he will be permitted to reside. It is true, that, for the _first_ year, there will be, in addition to this, his outfit: and for _every_ year there will be his journeys. There will also be twenty-two weeks uncovered by this estimate; but for these it is not my business to provide, who deal only with Oxford. That this estimate is true, I know too feelingly. Would that it were _not_! would that it were false! Were it so, I might the better justify to myself that commerce with fraudulent Jews which led me so early to commence the dilapidation of my small fortune. It _is_ true; and true for a period (1804-8) far dearer than this. And to any man who questions its accuracy I address this particular request--that he will lay his hand upon the special item which he disputes. I anticipate that he will answer thus: "I dispute none: it is not by positive things that your estimate errs, but by negations. It is the absence of all allowance for indispensable items that vitiates the calculation." Very well: but to this, as to other things, we may apply the words of Dr. Johnson--"Sir, the reason I drink no wine, is because I can practise abstinence, but not temperance." Yes: in all things, abstinence is easier than temperance; for a little enjoyment has invariably the effect of awaking the sense of enjoyment, irritating it, and setting it on edge. I, therefore, recollecting my own case, have allowed for _no_ wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction we are speaking of, give breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; and certainly to give none at all, unless he were dedicated to study, would seem very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkish and ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four.