Falkland | Page 3

nobles
which have sprung up to discountenance and eclipse the plainness of
more venerable and solid respectability. In his youth my father had
served in the army. He had known much of men and more of books;
but his knowledge, instead of rooting out, had rather been engrafted on
his prejudices. He was one of that class (and I say it with a private
reverence, though a public regret), who, with the best intentions, have
made the worst citizens, and who think it a duty to perpetuate whatever
is pernicious by having learnt to consider it as sacred. He was a great
country gentleman, a great sportsman, and a great Tory; perhaps the
three worst enemies which a country can have. Though beneficent to
the poor, he gave but a cold reception to the rich; for he was too refined
to associate with his inferiors, and too proud to like the competition of
his equals. One ball and two dinners a-year constituted all the
aristocratic portion of our hospitality, and at the age of twelve, the
noblest and youngest companions that I possessed were a large Danish
dog and a wild mountain pony, as unbroken and as lawless as myself. It
is only in later years that we can perceive the immeasurable importance

of the early scenes and circumstances which surrounded us. It was in
the loneliness of my unchecked wanderings that my early affection for
my own thoughts was conceived. In the seclusion of nature--in
whatever court she presided-- the education of my mind was begun;
and, even at that early age, I rejoiced (like the wild heart the Grecian
poet [Eurip. Bambae, 1. 874.] has described) in the stillness of the great
woods, and the solitudes unbroken by human footstep.
The first change in my life was under melancholy auspices; my father
fell suddenly ill, and died; and my mother, whose very existence
seemed only held in his presence, followed him in three months. I
remember that, a few hours before her death, she called me to her: she
reminded me that, through her, I was of Spanish extraction; that in her
country, I received my birth, and that, not the less for its degradation
and distress, I might hereafter find in the relations which I held to it a
remembrance to value, or even a duty to fulfil. On her tenderness to me
at that hour, on the impression it made upon my mind, and on the keen
and enduring sorrow which I felt for months after her death, it would be
useless to dwell.
My uncle became my guardian. He is, you know, a member of
parliament of some reputation; very sensible and very dull; very much
respected by men, very much disliked by women; and inspiring all
children, of either sex, with the same unmitigated aversion which he
feels for them himself.
I did not remain long under his immediate care. I was soon sent to
school--that preparatory world, where the great primal principles of
human nature, in the aggression of the strong and the meanness of the
weak, constitute the earliest lesson of importance that we are taught;
and where the forced primitiae of that less universal knowledge which
is useless to the many who in after life, neglect, and bitter to the few
who improve it, are the first motives for which our minds are to be
broken to terror, and our hearts initiated into tears.
Bold and resolute by temper, I soon carved myself a sort of career
among my associates. A hatred to all oppression, and a haughty and
unyielding character, made me at once the fear and aversion of the

greater powers and principalities of the school; while my agility at all
boyish games, and my ready assistance or protection to every one who
required it, made me proportionally popular with, and courted by, the
humbler multitude of the subordinate classes. I was constantly
surrounded by the most lawless and mischievous followers whom the
school could afford; all eager for my commands, and all pledged to
their execution.
In good truth, I was a worthy Rowland of such a gang; though I
excelled in, I cared little for the ordinary amusements of the school: I
was fonder of engaging in marauding expeditions contrary to our
legislative restrictions, and I valued myself equally upon my boldness
in planning our exploits, and my dexterity in eluding their discovery.
But exactly in proportion as our school terms connected me with those
of my own years, did our vacations unfit me for any intimate
companionship but that which I already began to discover in myself.
Twice in the year, when I went home, it was to that wild and romantic
part of the country where my former childhood had been spent. There,
alone and unchecked, I