Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/15

 untamable desire I have ever since had to become a soldier, a desire which has never since quitted me, and which, after sixteen years of various adventures, I am at last at liberty to indulge. Being at this time approaching seventeen years of age, it will not be thought incredible that women began to appear lovely in my eyess; and I very wisely thought that a red coat and cockade, with a pair of gold epaulettes, would aid me considerably in my aproaches to the objects of my adoration. This, combined with the reasons mentioned, decided me. I began to look on classical learning as nonsense, on a fellowship of Dublin College as a pitiful establishment; and, in short, I thought an ensign in a marching regiment was the happiest creature living. The hour when I was to enter the University, which now approached, I looked forward to with horror and disgust. I absented myself more and more from school, to which I preferred minding the recruits on drill at the barracks, so that at length my schoolmaster, who apprehended I should be found insufficient at the examination for entering the college, and that he in consequence would come in for his share of the disgrace, thought proper to do what he should have done at least three years before, and wrote my father a full account of my proceedings. This immediately produced a violent dispute between us. I declared my passion for the army, and my utter dislike to a learned profession; but my father was as obstinate as I, and, as he utterly refused to give me any assistance to forward my scheme, I had no resource but to submit, or to fellow my brother William's example, which I was too proud to do. In consequence, I sat down again with a very bad grace to pull up my lost time; and at length, after labouring for some time sorely against the grain, I entered a pensioner of Trinity College, in February 1781, being then not quite eighteen years of age. My tutor was the Rev. Matthew Young, the most popular in the University, and one of the first, mathematicians in Europe. At first I began to study logic courageously, but unluckily, at my first examination, I happened to fall into the hands of an egregious dunce, one Ledwiche, who, instead of giving me the premium, which as best answerer I undoubtedly merited, awarded it to another, and to me very indifferent judgments. I did not stand in need of this piece of injustice to alienate me once more from my studies. I returned with eagerness to my military plan. I besought my father to equip me as a volunteer, and to suffer me to join the army in America, where the war still raged. He refused me, as before; and in revenge I would not go near the College, nor open a book that was not a military one. In this manner we continued about a twelyemonth on very bad terms, as may be well supposed, without either party relaxing an inch from their determination. At length, seeing the war in America drawing to a close, and being beset by some of my friends who surrounded me, particularly Dr. Jameson, whom I have already mentioned, and a Mr. G. J. Brown, who had been sub-master at Mr. Darling's academy, and was now become a lawyer, I submitted a second time and returned to my studies, after an interval of above a year. To punish me for my obstinacy, I was obliged to submit to drop a class, as it is called, in the University; that is, to recommence with the students who had entered a year after me. I continued my studies at college, as I had done at school; that is, I idled until the last moment of delay. I then laboured hard for about a fortnight before the public examinations; and I always secured good judgments, besides obtaining the premiums in the three last years of my course."

The two next years, 1783 and 1784, were chiefly dedicated to a hopeless passion. He formed an acquaintance with a married lady of rank, and, to his youthful fancy, of surpassing attractions: she had, he says, extraordinary talents for the stage, which she displayed on a private theatre, fitted up for the occasion in her own house. Young Tone,