years of early boyhood, became the ruling passion of my soul. As I grew older, my ardour for it declined, and never was succeeded in an equal degree by any other of the passions of a sportsman. It is refreshing to my memory, even now, to think of the wild, clear, and rapid streams upon whose borders so many, many hours of my boyhood passed away. The rapid and brawling trout stream with its white-pebbled bottom and brink; the deep, dark, yet clear-coloured salmon pool, with its bank covered with short heathy grass intermixed with mountain wild flowers, and here and there with bright-bloomed and delightfully-smelling furze;-the red cliff-the grey and moss-clad rock with broom and brushwood springing from its crevices-the very thought of these has been refreshing to my soul when I was far away in other years by the sluggish and muddy waters of the plain. The scenery of the river, which I frequented most, was to me particularly delightful; I

have fished every stream of it again and again "from shore to mountain cave;" and on its bank I do not hesitate to say, that I have past some of the happiest hours of my boyhood, perhaps of my life. My time, which was then spent in solitude and involuntary contemplation of all the wonders and beauties of earth and sky, was, without my being aware of it, one poetical dream. In this calm communion with the pure, sublime and beautiful objects of nature, the world continued to be to me fairy land. Its sordid interests and fierce and grovelling passions were things then unknown to me; but they were not long to remain unknown, and soon, too soon, came a sound that burst my waking dream. Indeed, I might have learnt, even then, from the deceitful appearances and sudden changes of the winds and sky that in this world things are not what they appear.

I began this chapter meaning to speak of love -and may seem to have somewhat wandered

from my subject. I cannot remember the time when I first loved-though I might if I chose, and it were worth while, number those psychological loves of my boyhood and early youth. I shall content myself with recording, in its proper place, that one which was "the loveliest and the last"-both as having exercised a mighty influence on my earthly destiny, and as standing out so pre-eminently from all the others, that in speaking of it, I may with truth and sincerity declare, that I have loved but once on earth.

In the meantime, I will relate one of those other psychological phænomena that marked the course of my earlier years. I remember, when I was a boy of about ten or eleven, loving a girl a year or two older than myself with an extraordinary intensity and devotedness of affection. But like her, the bardimmortalized victim of that strange and subtle passion, I never told my love-told it did I say?—I never whispered it to the night, or

breathed it in the ear of silence-I never trusted it to echo, or gave it to empty air. It was so sensitive, so tender, that I should have blushed deep as scarlet, even under the light of the moon, had I but remotely suspected that her distant and silent orb was conscious of the flame within me. If, in the movements of the dance, peradventure, her hand touched mine, every nerve within my frame vibratedshivered as from an electric shock. Once, I remember, it chanced, at some childish game, that the forfeit awarded to her was to ask me to kiss her. The laughing maiden, half gaily, half blushingly, performed the task assigned her. I retained my seat in confusion and silence my eyes bent on the ground and my face overspread with blushes. Heavens! how strange is the recollection of that time. And was my boyish love returned?

I lov'd--but was I lov'd again?

I know not now-I knew not then.

CHAPTER V.

In earlier days and calmer hours,
When heart with heart delights to blend,
Where bloom my native valley's bowers

I bad-ah! have 1 now?-a friend.

The Giaour.

I WAS about twelve when we went to Eton, and my brother somewhat more than fourteen. Judson, of course, accompanied us, for he and my brother were now inseparable. I have often wondered that a tutor who had so much influence over a boy, as Judson certainly possessed over Lord Basseville, did not make use of it more to deter him from those habits of profligacy which he acquired so early. But Judson, no doubt, had his own reasons for the