“I am glad to hear that you are safely settled at College, I trust with the intention of making your residence there subservient to the purposes of steady study, without which it will be only a waste of expense and of leisure. I believe the matter depends very much on a youth himself, and therefore I hope to hear that you are strenuously exerting yourself to hold an honourable situation among the students of your celebrated university. Your course will not be unmarked, as something is expected from the son of any literary person; and I sincerely hope in this case those expectations will be amply gratified.
“I am obliged to Mr Hughes* for his kind intentions in your favour, as I dare say that any to whom he introduces you will be acquaintance worth cultivating. I
* John Hughes, Esq. of Oriel College—son of Sir Walter’s old friends, Dr and Mrs Hughes—the same whose “Itinerary of the Rhone,” &c., is mentioned with high praise in the Introduction to Quentin Durward. |
| OCTOBER, 1824. | 367 |
“I have little domestic news to tell you. Old Maida died quietly in his straw last week after a good supper, which, considering his weak state, was rather a deliverance. He is buried below his monument, on which the following epitaph is engraved—though it is great audacity to send Teviotdale Latin to Brazen-nose—
‘Maidæ Marmoreâ dormis sub imagine
Maida,
Ad januam domini sit tibi terra levis.’
|
‘Beneath the sculptured form which late you wore, Sleep soundly, Maida, at your
master’s door.’ |
“Yesterday we had our solemn hunt and killed fourteen hares, but a dog of Sir Adam’s broke her leg, and was obliged to be put to death in the field. Little Johnnie talks the strangest gibberish I ever heard, by way of repeating his little poems. I wish the child may ever speak plain. Mamma, Sophia, Anne, and I send love. Always your affectionate father,
