“The subject of cotemporaries (such are our friend’s remarks) is at an advanced period of life more painful than pleasing. Many of those whom we most loved and esteemed, are separated from us to meet no more, but in another scene of things. Of the majority, perhaps, of the rest, there is so much to lament and to regret, in the failure of their views and hopes, in their calamities, their follies, and their errors, that remembrance presents the mind with a motley picture, where there is more gloom than sunshine, more thorns than flowers.” There was one fellow-collegian in particular, who appears to have excited an extraordinary degree of interest in the writer of these remarks. He was of a studious and somewhat indolent character, perpetually proposing to his fancy the tranquillity and happiness, he flattered himself with hereafter enjoying in the marriage state, and in domestic life. This was the constant theme of his conversation, and the extremest limit of his ambition. He was connected with families who had ample means of satisfying his wishes, as far as revenue was concerned, and accordingly, at no distant period after he was qualified to receive them, Benefices were bestowed upon him, equal to his warmest wishes. It is lamentable to detail the final consequences. He married a woman without principle. His flattering views of happiness in the domestic life, vanished in smoke, and if he yet lives, he lives the scorn and ridicule of many, who were well warranted in their prediction of what actually ensued. Another individual, of very superior talents, and who had many and various attainments, as well as the most pleasing and conciliating manners, failed in his expectations of happiness, with still more provoking perverseness. He had obtained considerable distinction at the university, and might, if he had thought proper, have succeeded to something far more substantial than mere University honours; but he chose to marry, and unluckily he united himself to a person so inferior to himself in education and acquirements, that when he retired to his paternal inheritance, he found that he wanted a suitable companion. This induced him to plunge into business, for which, perhaps, of all men, he was the least qualified. He laid out the whole of his property in the purchase of great tythes in different places.