couraged by the hope of being useful. had been early excited in his mind.

This ambition

When Mrs. Howard had settled her affairs, she took a small neat house near Westminster school,* for the purpose of a boarding-house for some of the Westminster boys. This plan she preferred, because it secured an independent means of support, and at the same time enabled her, in some measure, to assist in her nephew's education, and to enjoy his company. She was no longer able to afford a sufficient salary to a well-informed private tutor; therefore she determined to send Charles to Westminster school; and, as he would board with her, she hoped to unite by this scheme, as much as possible, the advantages of a private and of a public education. Mr. Russell desired still to have the care of Mrs. Howard's nephew; he determined to offer himself as a tutor at Westminster school; and, as his acquirements were well known to the literary world, he was received with eagerness.

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My dear boy," said Mrs. Howard to her nephew, when he first went to Westminster, "I shall not trouble you with a long chapter of advice: do you remember that answer of the oracle which seemed to strike you so much the other day, when you were reading the life of Cicero ?"

"Yes," said Charles, "I recollect it—I shall never forget it. When Cicero asked how he should arrive at the height of glory, the oracle answered, 'By making his own genius, and not the opinion of the people, the guide of his life.""

"Well," said Mrs. Howard, smiling, "if I were your oracle, and you were to put the same question to me, I I think I should make you nearly the same answer; except that I should change the word genius into good sense; and, instead of the people, I should say the world, which, in general, I think, means all the silly people of one's acquaintance. Farewell: now go to the Westminster world."

Westminster was quite a new world to young Howard. The bustle and noise at first astonished his senses, and almost confounded his understanding; but he soon grew accustomed to the din, and familiarized to the sight of numbers. At first, he thought himself much inferior to

* See the account of Mrs. C. Ponten, in Gibbon's Life.

all his companions, because practice had given them the power of doing many things with ease which to him appeared difficult, merely because he had not been used to them. In all their games and plays, either of address or force, he found himself foiled. In a readiness of repartee, and a certain ease and volubility of conversation, he perceived his deficiency; and though he frequently was conscious that his ideas were more just, and his arguments better than those of his companions, yet he could not at first bring out his ideas to advantage, or manage his arguments so as to stand his ground against the mixed raillery and sophistry of his schoolfellows. He had not yet the tone of his new society, and he was as much at a loss as a traveller in a foreign country, before he understands the language of a people who are vociferating round about him. As fast, however, as he learned to translate the language of his companions into his own, he discovered that there was not so much meaning in their expressions as he had been inclined to imagine while they had remained unintelligible: but he was good-humoured and good-natured, so that, upon the whole, he was much liked; and even his inferiority, in many little trials of skill, was, perhaps, in his favour. He laughed with those that laughed at him, let them triumph in his awkwardness, but still persisted in new trials, till at last, to the great surprise of the spectators, he succeeded.

The art of boxing cost him more than all the rest; but as he was neither deficient in courage of mind nor activity of body, he did not despair of acquiring the necessary skill in this noble science-necessary, we say, for Charles had not been a week at Westminster before he was made sensible of the necessity of practising this art in his own defence. He had yet a stronger motive; he found it necessary for the defence of one who looked up to him for protection.

There was at this time at Westminster, a little boy, of the name of Oliver, a Creole, lively, intelligent, openhearted, and affectionate in the extreme, but rather passionate in his temper, and adverse to application. His literary education had been strangely neglected before he came to school, so that his ignorance of the common rudiments of spelling, reading, grammar, and arithmetic, made him the laughing-stock of the school. The poor boy felt inexpressible shame and anguish; his cheek

burned with blushes, when every day in the public class he was ridiculed and disgraced; but his dark complexion, perhaps, prevented those blushes from being noticed by his companions, otherwise they certainly would have suppressed, or would have endeavoured to repress, some of their insulting peals of laughter. He suffered no complaint or tear to escape him in public; but his book was sometimes blistered with the tears that fell when nobody saw them what was worse than all the rest, he found insurmountable difficulties at every step in his grammar. He was unwilling to apply to any of his more learned companions for explanations or assistance. He began to sink into despair of his own abilities, and to imagine that he must for ever remain, what indeed he was every day called, a dunce. He was usually flogged three times a week. Day after day brought no relief, either to his bodily or mental sufferings: at length his honest pride yielded, and he applied to one of the elder scholars for help. The boy to whom he applied was Augustus Holloway, Alderman Holloway's son, who was acknowledged to be one of the best Latin scholars at Westminster. He readily helped Oliver in his exercises, but he made him pay most severely for this assistance by the most tyrannical usage; and, in all his tyranny, he thought himself fully justifiable, because little Oliver, besides his other misfortunes, had the misfortune to be a fag.

There may be-though many schoolboys will, per haps, think it scarcely possible-there may be, in the compass of the civilized world, some persons so barbarously ignorant as not to know what is meant by the term fag. To these it may be necessary to explain, that at some English schools it is the custom that all little boys, when they first go to school, should be under the dominion of the elder boys. These little boys are called fags, and are forced to wait upon and obey their mastercompanions. Their duties vary in different schools. I have heard of its being customary, in some places, to make use of a fag regularly in the depth of winter instead of a warming-pan, and to send the shivering urchin through ten or twenty beds successively, to take off the chill of cold for their luxurious masters. They are expected in most schools to run of all the elder boys' errands, to be ready at their call, and to do all their high behests. They must never complain of being tired, or

their complaints will, at least, never be regarded, because, as the etymology of the word implies, it is their business to be tired. The substantive fag is not to be found in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary; but the verb to fag is there a verb neuter, from fatigo, Latin, and is there explained to mean," to grow weary, to faint with weariness." This is all the satisfaction we can, after the most diligent research, afford the curious and learned reader upon the subject of fags in general.

In particular, Mr. Augustus Holloway took great delight in teasing his fag, little Oliver. One day it happened that young Howard and Holloway were playing at ninepins together, and little Oliver was within a few yards of them, sitting under a tree, with a book upon his knees, anxiously trying to make out his lesson. Holloway, whenever the ninepins were thrown down, called to Oliver, and made him come from his book and set them up again: this he repeatedly did, in spite of How- ard's remonstrances, who always offered to set up the nine-pins, and who said it teased the poor little fellow to call him every minute from what he was about.

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Yes," said Holloway, "I know it teases him-that I see plain enough, by his running so fast back to his form, like a hare-there he is, squatting again: halloo! halloo! come, start again here," cried Holloway; "you haven't done yet: bring me the bowl, halloo !"

Howard did not at all enjoy the the diversion of hunting the poor boy about in this manner, and he said, with some indignation, "How is it possible, Holloway, that the boy can get his lesson if you interrupt him every instant ?"

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"Pooh! what signifies his foolish lesson?"

"It signifies a great deal to him," replied Howard: you know what he suffered this morning because he had not it."

"Suffered! why, what did he suffer?" said Holloway, upon whose memory the sufferings of others made no very deep impression. "O, ay, true-you mean, he was flogged: more shame for him!-why did not he mind and get his lesson better?"

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“I had not time to understand it rightly," said Oliver, with a deep sigh; "and I don't think I shall have time to-day either."

"More shame for you," repeated Holloway: "I'll

lay any bet on earth I get all you have to get in three minutes."

"Ah, you, to be sure," said Oliver, in a tone of great humiliation; "but then you know what a difference there is between you and me."

Holloway misunderstood him; and thinking he meant to allude to the difference in their age, instead of the difference in their abilities, answered sharply,

"When I was your age, do you think I was such a dunce as you are, pray?"

"No, that I am sure you never were," said Oliver; "but perhaps you had some good father or mother, or somebody who taught you a little before you came to school."

"I don't remember any thing about that," replied Holloway; "I don't know who was so good as to teach me, but I know I was so good as to learn fast enough, which is a goodness, I've a notion, some folks will never have to boast of-so trot, and fetch the bowl for me, do you hear, and set up the ninepins. You've sense enough to do that, have not you? and as for your lesson, I'll drive that into your head by-and-by, if I can,” added he, rapping with his knuckles upon the little boy's head.

"As to my lesson," said the boy, putting aside his head from the insulting knuckles; "I had rather try and make it out by myself, if I can.”

"If you can!" repeated Holloway, sneering; "but we all know you can't.

"Why can't he, Mr. Holloway?" exclaimed Howard, with a raised voice, for he was no longer master of his indignation.

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Why can't he?" repeated Holloway, looking round upon Howard with a mixture of surprise and insolence. "You must answer that question yourself, Mr. Howard: I say he can't."

“And I say he can, and he shall,” replied Howard; "and he shall have time to learn; he's willing and, I'll answer for it, able to learn; and he shall not be called a dunce; and he shall have time; and he shall have justice."

"Shall! shall! shall!" retorted Holloway, vociferating with a passion of a different sort from Howard's. "Pray, sir, who allowed you to say shall to me? and how dare you to talk in this here style to me about justice?-and what business have you, I should be glad to