For my own part, in all my experience of European deficiencies, I have never found any deficiency of time.  Money went like the wind; champagne grew scanty; the trust of tailors ran down to the dregs; the smiles of my fair flirts grew rare as diamonds—­every thing became as dry, dull, and stagnant as the Serpentine in summer; but time never failed me.  I had a perpetual abundance of a commodity which the philosophers told me was beyond price.  I had not merely enough for myself, but enough to give to others; until I discovered the fact, that it was as little a favourite with others as myself, and that, whatever the plausible might say, there was nothing on earth for which they would not be more obliged to me than a donation of my superfluous time.  But now let me give a sketch of my story.  A single fact is worth a hundred reflections.  The first consciousness that I remember, was that of having a superabundance of time; and my first ingenuity was demanded for getting rid of the encumbrance.  I had always an hour that perplexed my skill to know what to do with this treasure.  A schoolboy turn for long excursions in any direction but that of my pedagogue, indicative of a future general officer; a naturalist-taste for bird-nesting, which, in maturer years, would have made me one of the wonders of the Linnaean Society; a passion for investigating the inside of every thing, from a Catherine-wheel to a China-closet, which would yet have entitled me to the honours of an F.R.S.; and an original vigour in the plunder of orchards, which undoubtedly might have laid the foundation of a first lord of the treasury; were nature’s helps to get rid of this oppressive bounty.  But though I fought the enemy with perpetual vigour and perpetual variety, he was not to be put to flight by a stripling; and I went to the university as far from being a conqueror as ever.  At Oxford I found the superabundance of this great gift acknowledged with an openness worthy of English candour, and combated with the dexterity of an experience five hundred years old.  Port-drinking, flirtation, lounging, the invention of new ties to cravats, and new tricks on proctors; billiards, boxing, and barmaids; seventeen ways of mulling sherry, and as many dozen ways of raising “the supplies,” were adopted with an adroitness that must have baffled all but the invincible.  Yet Time was master at last; and he always indulged me with a liberality that would have driven a less resolute spirit to the bottom of the Isis.

At length I gave way; left the university with my blessing and my debts; and rushed up to London, as the grand place d’armes, the central spot from which the enemy was excluded by the united strength, wit, and wisdom of a million and a half of men.  I might as well have staid bird-nesting in Berkshire.  I found the happiest contrivances against the universal invader fail.  Pigeon-matches; public dinners; coffee-houses; bluestocking reunions; private morning quadrille practice, with public evening exhibitions