He was remarkably good-natured, even to excess. He would thoughtlessly give away the guinea which was his last. With equal thoughtlessness he would borrow whatever he could obtain from others, without the remotest idea of returning it again. He once carried his mother to an inn in a provincial town, where he ordered a sumptuous dinner, and the most expensive wines. When the bill was produced, though they went in their own carriage, it appeared that neither mother nor son had a sixpence in their pocket. They were relieved from the awkwardness of their situation by the writer of this narrative, who as he never expected, so did he never see a shilling of his money again. When young, and the talent was probably continued to him, the original of this portrait had an extraordinary faculty of exciting mirth, by the most unaccountable and unexpected sallies of humour and ridicule. To this he was probably indebted for the protection which he subsequently received, when he most wanted it. He had almost always an avowed disregard of what are invariably respected as the decencies of life, and would, without scruple, if asked by an old acquaintance where he was to be found, give his card at a common brothel, or at the lodgings of some celebrated courtezan. At the same time he could assume the mildest manners, and conciliate the kindness of the most timid and the most modest of the sex. His ruin was certainly to be imputed to a neglected education, and the unpardonable indulgence which was shown him in his earliest years. He doubtless had those qualities of heart, and those endowments of intellect, which, if they had been directed, chastened, and disciplined, by a skilful and experienced guide, would have rendered him as useful and as amiable, as he certainly turned out unworthy of any virtuous esteem. Stet quicunque volet potens, Aulæ culmine lubrico, Me dulcis saturet quies Obscuro positum loco. CHAPTER XVIII. A notable contrast to the preceding was another singular and eccentric character, a fellow-collegian of the same standing. He has been slightly alluded to in a former part of this narrative, and deserves to be yet further remembered. His father was a farmer of some respectability, and he, as the eldest son, was allowed to choose his profession, which he was originally induced to make that of a linen-weaver. He toiled on year after year very inauspiciously; he contracted, however, a fondness for reading, and at the age of at least thirty-six, took it into his head that he would go to college, and be a clergyman. He accordingly converted his stock and moveables into money, and with the assistance of a neighbouring clergyman, got just Latin and Greek enough to pass examination at college.