regained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in romance.

The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, claimed to be considered as the heads of this 5 distinguished family. The main stock, indeed, prospered less than some of the younger shoots. But the Daylesford family, though not ennobled, was wealthy and highly considered, till, about two hundred years ago, it was overwhelmed by the great ruin of the civil The Hastings of that time was a zealous cavalier. He raised money on his lands, sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, joined the royal army, and, after spending half his property in the cause of King Charles, was glad to ransom himself by making over 15 most of the remaining half to Speaker Lenthal.1 The

IO war.

old seat at Daylesford still remained in the family; but it could no longer be kept up; and in the following generation it was sold to a merchant of London.

Before this transfer took place, the last Hastings of 20 Daylesford had presented his second son to the rectory of the parish in which the ancient residence of the family stood. The living was of little value; and the situation of the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate, was deplorable. He was constantly 25 engaged in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord of the manor, and was at length utterly ruined. His eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted young

1 Speaker Lenthal.-Chairman of the House of Commons in the Cromwellian epoch.

man, obtained a place in the Customs. The second son, Pynaston, an idle worthless boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his wife in two years, and died in the West Indies, leaving to the care of his unfortunate father a little orphan, destined to strange and memor- 5 able vicissitudes of fortune.

Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the 6th of December, 1732. His mother died a few days later, and he was left dependent on his distressed grandfather. The child was early sent to the village 10 school, where he learned his letters on the same bench with the sons of the peasantry; nor did anything in his garb or fare indicate that his life was to take a widely different course from that of the young rustics with whom he studied and played. But no cloud 15 could overcast the dawn of so much genius and so much ambition. The very ploughmen observed, and long remembered, how kindly little Warren took to his book. The daily sight of the lands which his ancestors had possessed, and which had passed into 20 the hands of strangers, filled his young brain with wild fancies and projects. He loved to hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valour. On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven 25 years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten years later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, through all the

turns of his eventful career, was never abandoned. He would recover the estate which had belonged to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in infancy and poverty, grew 5 stronger as his intellect expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but indomitable force of will which was the most striking peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, Io amidst all the cares of war, finance and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long public life, so singularly chequered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed for ever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die.

15

When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard determined to take charge of him, and to give him a liberal education. The boy went up to London, and was sent to a school at Newington, where he was well taught but ill fed. He always attributed the 20 smallness of his stature to the hard and scanty fare of this seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster School, then flourishing under the care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne,1 as his pupils affectionately called him, was one of the masters. Churchill,2 Col

1 Vinny (Vincent) Bourne (1700-1747) wrote a considerable quantity of Latin Poetry. Cowper refers to him thus: "I love the memory of Vincy Bourne ".

2 Churchill, Charles (1731-1764), a second-rate poet; his bestremembered work being The Rosciad, a satirical poem directed against the actors of his day.

man,1 Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, were among the students. With Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which neither the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimilarity of opinions and pursuits, could wholly dissolve. It does not appear that they ever met after 5 they had grown to manhood. But forty years later, when the voices of many great orators were crying for vengeance on the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded poet could imagine to himself Hastings the Governor-General only as the Hastings with whom he 10 had rowed on the Thames and played in the cloister, and refused to believe that so good-tempered a fellow could have done anything very wrong. His own life had been spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among the water-lilies of the Ouse. He had pre- 15 served in no common measure the innocence of childhood. His spirit had indeed been severely tried, but not by temptations which impelled him to any gross violation of the rules of social morality. He had never been attacked by combinations of powerful and 20

1 Colman, George (1733-1794). —A dramatist and translator. The Jealous Wife is one of his comedies.

2 Lloyd, Robert (1733-1764).—A minor poet, who in conjunction with Colman, in Two Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion, parodied Gray's Progress of Poesy and The Bard.

3 Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811), besides novels wrote plays, The West Indian and The Wheel of Fortune being the best.

Cowper, William (1731-1800).—A poet of a much higher class than those previously mentioned. His most famous poem is The Task; but he is remembered also by his comic ballad of John Gilpin, and by his prose letters. He lived a very quiet and secluded life at Olney, in Buckinghamshire, on the banks of the Great Ouse.

deadly enemies. He had never been compelled to make a choice between innocence and greatness, between crime and ruin. Firmly as he held in theory the doctrine of human depravity, his habits were such that he was unable to conceive how far from the path of right even kind and noble natures may be hurried by the rage of conflict and the lust of dominion.

Hastings had another associate at Westminster of whom we shall have occasion to make frequent Io mention, Elijah Impey. We know little about their school days. But, we think, we may safely venture to guess that, whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst part of the 15 prank.

Warren was distinguished among his comrades as an excellent swimmer, boatman and scholar. At fourteen he was first in the examination for the foundation. His name in gilded letters on the

20 walls of the dormitory still

attests his victory over He stayed two years

many older competitors. longer at the school, and was looking forward to a studentship at Christ Church,1 when an event happened which changed the whole course of his 25 life. Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his nephew to the care of a friend and distant relation, named Chiswick. This gentleman, though he did

1 Christ Church.-One of the colleges of Oxford University