Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/260

230 (that greatest of all merits,) we know not; but the widower became so fond of him, that it was at a late period, and with great reluctance, that he finally entrusted him to the providence of a school.

Among harlots, and gamblers, and lords, and sharpers, and gentlemen of the Guards, together with their frequent accompaniments—guards of the gentlemen—viz. bailiffs, William Brandon passed the first stages of his boyhood. He was about thirteen when he was sent to school; and being a boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time so well, that when, at the age of nineteen, he adjourned to the university, he had scarcely resided there a single term before he had borne off two of the highest prizes awarded to academical merit. From the university he departed on the "grand tour," at that time thought so necessary to complete the gentleman; he went in company with a young nobleman, whose friendship he had won at the university, stayed abroad more than two years, and on his return he settled down to the profession of the law.

Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a