world's line of honour, but as having been willing to run exceedingly close to it. "He pardoned himself too easily for his manifold neglect and breaches of the compacts he had made with his conscience; but there was repentance at the bottom of all." It is rather grudgingly admitted also that "the early part of his college career, when for the first time he left the too gentle restraints of his father's house, ... was the most dangerous period of his life. Upon portions of it he afterwards looked back with regret." There is a good deal of significance, moreover, in some sentences which Prescott himself wrote, long afterwards, of the temptations which assail a youth during those years when he has attained to the independence of a man but while he is still swayed by the irresponsibility of a boy. There seems to be in these sentences a touch of personal reminiscence and regret:-- "The University, that little world of itself ... bounding the visible horizon of the student like the walls of a monastery, still leaves within him scope enough for all the sympathies and the passions of manhood.... He meets with the same obstacles to success as in the world, the same temptations to idleness, the same gilded seductions, but without the same power of resistance. For in this morning of life his passions are strongest; his animal nature is more sensible to enjoyment; his reasoning faculties less vigorous and mature. Happy the youth who in this stage of his existence is so strong in his principles that he can pass through the ordeal without faltering or failing, on whom the contact of bad companionship has left no stain for future tears to wash away." Just how much is meant by this reluctant testimony can only be conjectured. It is not unfair, however, to assume that, for a time, Prescott's diversions were such as even a lenient moralist would think it necessary to condemn. The fondness for wine, which remained with him throughout his life, makes it likely that convival excess was one of his undergraduate follies; while the flutter of a petticoat may at times have stirred his senses. No doubt many a young man in his college days has plunged far deeper into dissipation than ever Prescott did and has emerged unscathed to lead a useful life. Yet in Prescott's case there existed a peculiar danger. His future did not call upon him to face the stern realities of a life of toil. He was assured of a fortune ample for his needs, and therefore his easy-going, pleasure-loving disposition, his boundless popularity, his handsome face, his exuberant spirits, and his very moderate ambition might easily have combined to lead him down the primrose path where intellect is enervated and moral fibre irremediably sapped.