Disappointment: More marriage accidents: Preparations for a journey

The delay of two terms was by no means pleasing to me. I had nearly waited the stipulated time, had read wall lectures, and had done juraments, and generals. Aristotle had been laid upon my head, and I had been created a Soph. In fine, I had complied with all the forms of the university; forms which once perhaps might have had a meaning, but which are now offensively absurd. I expected the next term to have obtained the degree of bachelor of arts, after which it was my intention to have gone to London, there to have been ordained, and to have sought a flock wanting a pastor, on whom the stores of my theology and the powers of my elocution might have been well bestowed.

Traversed in this design, I determined to repair to the great city immediately, and return to keep my terms at Oxford when the period of rustication should have elapsed. But I had been obliged to furnish myself with books and music, and had found the hundred pounds a year allowed me scarcely sufficient; and, beside the charges of travelling and removal, I was informed that London was an expensive place. It was therefore necessary I should write to the country, for a supply. The correspondence with my mother, though not pursued with all the zeal in which it was begun, had been occasionally continued. At first her letters abounded with eulogiums on her husband, but the subject afterward began to cool with her, and she had lately forborne even to mention his name. In answer to the letters which I wrote, to inform her and lawyer Thornby of my plan and to request a supply, a part of the truth appeared. Her husband was a young man, who, coming sooner into the possession of money than of good sense, had squandered as much of it as he could wrest from his uncle, the lawyer, who affirmed the whole or nearly the whole was wasted; and, when he could obtain no more, had left her to depend on Thornby's bounty and had gone to London.

These disagreeable circumstances were in part communicated by my mother and in part by Thornby, who had written to tell me that, if a small advance were made, it must be deducted from the thousand pounds, bequeathed as before mentioned. To this I willingly agreed, and, giving him all the legal security he required, I received fifty pounds; after which I made the necessary preparations for my intended journey, and obtained letters of recommendation to a clergyman in London, and to the Bishop of—to whom, when I should have taken my bachelor's degree, I meant to apply for deacon's orders.

END OF VOLUME I