often gives a false value to its charms, or rather a false idea to its nature. Idleness, ennui, noise, mischief, riot, and a nameless train of mistaken notions of pleasure, are often classed, in a young man's mind, under the general head of _liberty_.
Mr. Augustus Holloway, who is necessarily recalled to our notice, when we want to personify an ill-educated young man, was, in the strictest sense of the word, a school-boy--a clever school-boy--a good scholar--a good historian: he wrote a good hand--read with fluency--declaimed at a public exhibition of Westminster orators with no bad grace and emphasis, and had always extempore words, if not extempore sense, at command. But still he was but a school-boy. His father thought him a man, and more than a man. Alderman Holloway prophesied to his friends that his son Augustus would be one of the first orators in England. He was in a hurry to have him ready to enter college, and had a borough secure for him at the proper age. The proper age, he regretted, that parliament had fixed to twenty-one; for the alderman was impatient to introduce his young statesman to the house, especially as he saw honours, perhaps a title, in the distant perspective of his son's advancement.
Whilst this vision occupied the father's imagination, a vision of another sort played upon the juvenile fancy of his son--a vision of a gig; for, though Augustus was but a school-boy, he had very manly ideas--if those ideas be manly which most young men have. Lord Rawson, the son of the Earl of Marryborough, had lately appeared to Augustus in a gig. The young Lord Rawson had lately been a school-boy at Westminster like Augustus: he was now master of himself and three horses at College. Alderman Holloway had lent the Earl of Marryborough certain monies, the interest of which the earl scrupulously paid in civility. The alderman valued himself upon being a shrewd man; he looked to one of the earl's boroughs as a security for his principal, and, from long-sighted political motives, encouraged an intimacy between the young nobleman and his son. It was one of those useful friendships, one of those fortunate connexions, which some parents consider as the peculiar advantage of a public school. Lord Rawson's example already powerfully operated upon his young friend's mind, and this intimacy was most likely to have a decisive influence upon the future destiny of Augustus. Augustus was the son of an alderman. Lord Rawson was two years older than Holloway--had left school--had been at college--had driven both a curricle and a barouche, and had gone through all the gradations of coachmanship--was a man, and had _seen the world_. How many things to excite the ambition of a schoolboy! Augustus was impatient for the moment when he might "be what he admired." The drudgery of Westminster, the confinement, the ignominious appellation of _a boy_, were all insupportable to this _young man_. He had obtained from his father a promise, that he should leave school in a few months; but these months appeared to him an age. It was rather a misfortune to Holloway that he was so far advanced in his Latin and Greek studies, for he had the less to do at school; his school business quickly despatched, his time hung upon his hands. He never thought of literature as an amusement for his leisure hours; he had no idea of improving himself further in general science and knowledge. He was told that his education was _nearly_ at an end; he believed it was _quite_ finished, and he was glad of it, and glad it was so well over. In the idle time that hung upon his hands, during this intermediate state at Westminster, he heartily regretted that he could not commence his manly career by learning to _drive_--to drive a curricle. Lord Rawson had carried him down to the country, the last summer vacation, in his _dog-cart_, driven _randem-tandem_. The reins had touched his fingers. The whip had been committed to his hand, and he longed for a repetition of these pleasures. From the windows of the house in Westminster, where he boarded, Holloway at every idle moment lolled, to enjoy a view of every carriage, and of every coachman that passed.