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No. X.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1816.

Alumnus ipse et alumni Pater.

ONE of my friends in College being desired by his father to bring a schoolfellow to dine with him some day or other, thought fit to fix on me for the purpose. Accordingly I went home with him, and was duly introduced to all his family, and at the same time to a gentleman who was to make one of our dinner party.-I found my friend's father and the gentleman I have just mentioned had both been King's Scholars, and very great cronies in their School-days, so that, in the course of the evening, there was naturally a great dea of conversation about Westminster. They

first of all began condoling with us, on the inclosure of Tothill-fields: it was in vain that I represented to them, that the cricket ground was infinitely improved by it, that we had an excellent piece of water for skating, that it put an end to all disturbances, &c. &c. "Oh, but," said they "where is your ditch-leaping, where is your sporting?" "Ah," said our host, turning to his friend, "in our time, Jack, what sport we have seen in those fields— Pray," continued he, addressing himself "don't you Westminsters miss Slender Billy very much?"-On my protesting that I had not even heard of such a person, he seemed much surprised, and said, "Poor Billy Aberfield! in my time he was the Arbiter deliciarum of the School. -What glorious badger-baiting, dogfighting, and duck-hunting he used to give us."

to me,

This mention of Billy Aberfield, (who, by the bye, was executed about four years ago, for forgery,) seemed to set these gen-

tlemen agoing on the delights of their school-days. They reminded each other of the scrapes they got into and the tricks they had played, and told us with a great deal of exultation the pranks they had committed both in and out of school. I remember what they related to us with particular pleasure, was an account of a duck-stealing expedition up the Thames. All the while I was inwardly envying my friend's good fortune in having a father who, as I conjectured from the candour with which he allowed his own boyish tricks, must be so willing to make allowances for those of his son, and would be

"To all his virtues very kind,

"And to his failings rather blind.”

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But when on our return to College, I congratulated my friend on this subject, he assured me with a great deal of sorrow, that I was much mistaken, that although he made no scruple of avowing, nay even gloried in the recital of his own transgres

sions at Westminster, he was unmercifully strict with any he discovered in his son. Upon this my opinion was changed as speedily as it had been formed, I now thought him one of the most unreasonable beings in the world.

I would not have my readers suppose, that I think there is any thing wrong in the conduct of those fathers who correct with severity in their sons the faults they themselves made no scruple in committing when boys on the contrary it is their duty so to do, as they know by experience the bad effects of not having been checked in those excesses. But it certainly is very unreasonable in any one, to glory in the very practices from which he would wish to deter his hearers, who might very naturally say, "I have always been given to understand that one of the chief tests of right and wrong is, the impression they leave on the memory; those evidently then must be at least innocent amusements which my father remembers with pleasure

even to his latest days? why must I be debarred from that, which it seems will not only be pleasant now, but conducive to my happiness hereafter?" These questions might easily be asked, and found difficult to answer.

The father who relates to his son his youthful transgressions, for the purpose of exposing the folly and unfruitfulness of them, does well, and perhaps could take no better or stronger method of enforcing his doctrines, and preventing the commission of similar offences: he who relates them without this intention, perhaps rather encourages him in his errors, and leaves him room to suppose that his misconduct is at least very pardonable, as he only treads in his father's footsteps: to whose vices, "For in our fathers' vices we are born," if he adds no more, he probably may think himself very well off: but he who takes pride in his frolics, and boasts of them before his son, creates for him a double incentive to similar transgressions,

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