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within one mile of that place, having heard of the business, sent his groom and a horse three different times in the day to take me home. I had pledged my honour to the boys not to leave them, of which I informed my father; father; and though he was much incensed against me, I steadily adhered to my promise, and never deserted the cause, to support which I had so solemnly pledged myself. Some disgracefully forfeited their honour, and were never after respected whilst at school; and it yet is an existing blot in their escutcheon of honour. We had also a serious quarrel with the townsmen of Windsor. I was only then in the lower school: but I went up to see the big boys fight; some of whom run away before even a blow was struck, and they have been stamped as cowards from that day to this. Some

few boys I have known to be so timid that they never could be brought to fight even open-handed, and, had they been beat with a lady's thread-paper, would have cried as much as others would have done from an horse-whipping. Those who are cowards at school, ever remain so; age gives experience, but not courage: it is strange, but it is true, that these characters continue to be insolent and overbearing at an advanced period of life; but it is generally to their inferiors, unless they happen to light on some person of consequence who is as noted a coward as themselves; then indeed they are wonderfully bold: but when an inferior has the impudence not to respect their consequence, and resents the injury, sooner than fight, they will make the most abject, mean, and disgraceful apologies.

Such men, as we have daily proofs, are to be found in right honourable families, as well as in the middle ranks of life.

When I left Eton College, I did not go either to Oxford or Cambridge to complete my education, as is customary with most young men. This was a very fortunate circumstance, in which

my father

shewed his superior judgment. As I had resolved on being a soldier, a German education was best suited to the profession I had chosen. Had I been placed at Oxford or Cambridge, not being of a studious disposition, my health might have suffered from every species of riot and dissipation, which is so prevalent at our universities; and my mind would have remained in the same uncultivated state at my departure as at my arrival, for it is a hundred to one if I had ever

read any literary works except the Sporting Calendar and the Newspaper. I was accordingly sent into Germany, to Gottingen, which is one of the most celebrated universities in the world. The first teachers in every science are to be found there; and public lectures in all branches of learning are delivered by the most experienced and learned professors. But Gottingen is not a proper place, in my opinion, for the character of a young militant (particularly an Englishman). For a soldier, whom no talent, after courage, can recommend so much to the favour of the great world as good-breeding, and elegant and polite manners, is not likely to acquire those fascinating accomplishments from a recluse set of learned professors, whose knowledge extends no further than the lectures they deliver to their pupils.

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Such societies are too confined and contracted to improve and expand the mind of a young militant. Whilst studying the memoirs of the great Frederick; while adoring and envying his immortal fame, his tender breast, as yet a stranger to the toils of war, or its hard and dear-earned pittance, pants to acquire inferior honour in the tented field; and anxiously awaits Bellona's solemn call, to meet the winged messenger of death, or share the laurel on the victor's brow.

There is another material deficiency in such seminaries of learning; the society of women of the first manners, fashion, and education, without which no mind can be polished, is wanting. The lovely fair ones contribute more to soften our behaviour, and take off our natural

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