'No one can deny it,' said the rector, as he fingered the

small change in his breeches pocket; and pointing with the
other hand to the broad back of the black sow, exclaimed,

'This is the one, DUPLEX AGITUR PER LUMBOS SPINA! She's got
a back like an alderman's chin.'

'EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUS,' I assented, and the fate of the
black sow was sealed.

Next day an express came from Holkham, to say that Lady
Leicester had given birth to a daughter. My tutor jumped out

of his chair to hand me the note. 'Did I not anticipate the
event'? he cried. 'What a wonderful world we live in!

Unconsciously I made room for the infant by sacrificing the
life of that pig.' As I never heard him allude to the

doctrine of Pythagoras, as he had no leaning to Buddhism,
and, as I am sure he knew nothing of the correlation of

forces, it must be admitted that the conception was an
original one.

Be this as it may, Mr. Collyer was an upright and
conscientious man. I owe him much, and respect his memory.

He died at an advanced age, an honorary canon, and - a
bachelor.

Another portrait hangs amongst the many in my memory's
picture gallery. It is that of his successor to the

vicarage, the chaplaincy, and the librarianship, at Holkham -
Mr. Alexander Napier - at this time, and until his death

fifty years later, one of my closest and most cherished
friends. Alexander Napier was the son of Macvey Napier,

first editor of the 'Edinburgh Review.' Thus, associated
with many eminent men of letters, he also did some good

literary work of his own. He edited Isaac Barrow's works for
the University of Cambridge, also Boswell's 'Johnson,' and

gave various other proofs of his talents and his scholarship.
He was the most delightful of companions; liberal-minded in

the highest degree; full of quainthumour and quick sympathy;
an excellent parishpriest, - looking upon Christianity as a

life and not a dogma; beloved by all, for he had a kind
thought and a kind word for every needy or sick being in his

parish.
With such qualities, the man always predominated over the

priest. Hence his large-hearted charity and indulgence for
the faults - nay, crimes - of others. Yet, if taken aback by

an outrage, or an act of gross stupidity, which even the
perpetrator himself had to suffer for, he would momentarily

lose his patience, and rap out an objurgation that would
stagger the straiter-laced gentlemen of his own cloth, or an

outsider who knew less of him than - the recording angel.
A fellow undergraduate of Napier's told me a characteristic

anecdote of his impetuosity. Both were Trinity men, and had
been keeping high jinks at a supper party at Caius. The

friend suddenly pointed to the clock, reminding Napier they
had but five minutes to get into college before Trinity gates

were closed. 'D-n the clock!' shouted Napier, and snatching
up the sugar basin (it was not EAU SUCREE they were

drinking), incontinently flung it at the face of the
offending timepiece.

This youthful vivacity did not desert him in later years. An
old college friend - also a Scotchman - had become Bishop of

Edinburgh. Napier paid him a visit (he described it to me
himself). They talked of books, they talked of politics,

they talked of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, of
Brougham, Horner, Wilson, Macaulay, Jeffrey, of Carlyle's

dealings with Napier's father - 'Nosey,' as Carlyle calls
him. They chatted into the small hours of the night, as boon

companions, and as what Bacon calls 'full' men, are wont.
The claret, once so famous in the 'land of cakes,' had given

place to toddy; its flow was in due measure to the flow of
soul. But all that ends is short - the old friends had spent

their last evening together. Yes, their last, perhaps. It
was bed-time, and quoth Napier to his lordship, 'I tell you

what it is, Bishop, I am na fou', but I'll be hanged if I
haven't got two left legs.'

'I see something odd about them,' says his lordship. 'We'd
better go to bed.'

Who the bishop was I do not know, but I'll answer for it he
was one of the right sort.

In 1846 I became an undergraduate of Trinity College,
Cambridge. I do not envy the man (though, of course, one

ought) whose college days are not the happiest to look back
upon. One should hope that however profitably a young man

spends his time at the University, it is but the preparation
for something better. But happiness and utility are not

necessarily concomitant; and even when an undergraduate's
course is least employed for its intended purpose (as, alas!

mine was) - for happiness, certainly not pure, but simple,
give me life at a University,

Heaven forbid that any youth should be corrupted by my
confession! But surely there are some pleasures pertaining

to this unique epoch that are harmless in themselves, and are
certainly not to be met with at any other. These are the

first years of comparative freedom, of manhood, of
responsibility. The novelty, the freshness of every

pleasure, the unsatiated appetite for enjoyment, the animal
vigour, the ignorance of care, the heedlessness of, or

rather, the implicit faith in, the morrow, the absence of
mistrust or suspicion, the frank surrender to generous

impulses, the readiness to accept appearances for realities -
to believe in every profession or exhibition of good will, to

rush into the arms of every friendship, to lay bare one's
tenderest secrets, to listen eagerly to the revelations which

make us all akin, to offer one's time, one's energies, one's
purse, one's heart, without a selfish afterthought - these, I

say, are the priceless pleasures, never to be repeated, of
healthful average youth.

What has after-success, honour, wealth, fame, or, power -
burdened, as they always are, with ambitions, blunders,

jealousies, cares, regrets, and failing health - to match
with this enjoyment of the young, the bright, the bygone,

hour? The wisdom of the worldly teacher - at least, the
CARPE DIEM - was practised here before the injunction was

ever thought of. DU BIST SO SCHON was the unuttered
invocation, while the VERWEILE DOCH was deemed unneedful.

Little, I am ashamed to own, did I add either to my small
classical or mathematical attainments. But I made

friendships - lifelong friendships, that I would not barter
for the best of academical prizes.

Amongst my associates or acquaintances, two or three of whom
have since become known - were the last Lord Derby, Sir

William Harcourt, the late Lord Stanley of Alderley, Latimer
Neville, late Master of Magdalen, Lord Calthorpe, of racing

fame, with whom I afterwards crossed the Rocky Mountains, the
last Lord Durham, my cousin, Sir Augustus Stephenson, ex-

solicitor to the Treasury, Julian Fane, whose lyrics were
edited by Lord Lytton, and my life-long friend Charles

Barrington, private secretary to Lord Palmerston and to Lord
John Russell.

But the most intimate of them was George Cayley, son of the
member for the East Riding of Yorkshire. Cayley was a young

man of much promise. In his second year he won the
University prize poem with his 'Balder,' and soon after

published some other poems, and a novel, which met with
merited oblivion. But it was as a talker that he shone. His

quick intelligence, his ready wit, his command of language,
made his conversation always lively, and sometimes brilliant.

For several years after I left Cambridge I lived with him in
his father's house in Dean's Yard, and thus made the