VOLATILE as the reader may conceive the character of Lisardo to be, there were traits in it of marked goodness and merit. His enthusiasm frequently made him violate the rules of severe politeness; and the quickness with which he flew from one subject to another, might have offended a narrator, who had the gravity, without the urbanity, of Lysander; but the frankness with which he confessed his faults, and the warmth with which he always advocated the cause of literature, rendered him amiable in the eyes of those who thoroughly knew him. The friends, whose company he was now enjoying, were fully competent to appreciate his worth. They perceived that Lisardo's mind had been rather brilliantly cultivated; and that, as his heart had always beaten at the call of virtue, so, in a due course of years, his judgment would become matured, and his opinions more decidedly fixed. He had been left, very early in life, without a father, and bred up in the expectation of a large fortune: while the excessive fondness of his mother had endeavored to supply the want of paternal direction, and had encouraged her child to sigh for every thing short of impossibility for his gratification.

In consequence, Lisardo was placed at College upon the most respectable footing. He wore the velvet cap, and enjoyed the rustling of the tassels upon his silk gown as he paraded the High street of Oxford.