There are certain events in our lives poetically and beautifully described by Moore, as “green spots in memory’s waste.”  Such are the emotions arising from the attainment, after a long pursuit, of any darling object of love or ambition; and although possession and subsequent events may have proved to us that we had overrated our enjoyment, and experience have shown us “that all is vanity,” still, recollection dwells with pleasure upon the beating heart, when the present only was enjoyed, and the picture painted by youthful and sanguine anticipation in glowing and delightful colours.  Youth only can feel this; age has been often deceived—­too often has the fruit turned to ashes in the mouth.  The old look forward with a distrust and doubt, and backward with sorrow and regret.

One of the red-letter days of my life, was that on which I first mounted the uniform of a midshipman.  My pride and ecstacy were beyond description.  I had discarded the school and school-boy dress, and, with them, my almost stagnant existence.  Like the chrysalis changed into a butterfly, I fluttered about as if to try my powers; and felt myself a gay and beautiful creature, free to range over the wide domains of nature, clear of the trammels of parents or schoolmasters; and my heart bounded within me at the thoughts of being left to enjoy at my own discretion, the very acme of all the pleasure that human existence could afford; and I observe that in this, as in most other cases, I met with that disappointment which usually attends us.  True it is, that in the days of my youth, I did enjoy myself.  I was happy for a time, if happiness it could be called; but dearly have I paid for it.  I contracted a debt, which I have been liquidating by instalments ever since; nor am I yet emancipated.  Even the small portion of felicity that fell to my lot on this memorable morning was brief in duration, and speedily followed by chagrin.

But to return to my uniform.  I had arrayed myself in it; my dirk was belted round my waist; a cocked-hat, of an enormous size, stuck on my head; and, being perfectly satisfied with my own appearance, at the last survey which I had made in the glass, I first rang for the chambermaid, under pretence of telling her to make my room tidy, but, in reality, that she might admire and compliment me, which she very wisely did; and I was fool enough to give her half a crown and a kiss, for I felt myself quite a man.  The waiter, to whom the chambermaid had in all probability communicated the circumstance, presented himself, and having made a low bow, offered the same compliments, and received the same reward, save the kiss.  Boots would, in all probability, have come in for his share, had he been in the way, for I was fool enough to receive all their fine speeches as if they were my due, and to pay for them at the same time in ready money.  I was a gudgeon and they were sharks; and more sharks would soon have been about me, for I heard them, as they left the room, call “boots” and “ostler,” of course to assist in lightening my purse.