I AM going to try if I can't write something about myself. Mylife has been rather a strange one. It may not seem particularlyuseful or respectable; but it has been, in some respects,adventurous; and that may give it claims to be read, even in themost prejudiced circles. I am an example of some of the workingsof the social system of this illustrious country on theindividual native, during the early part of the present century;and, if I may say so without unbecoming vanity, I should like toquote myself for the edification of my countrymen.

Who am I.

I am remarkably well connected, I can tell you. I came into thisworld with the great advantage of having Lady Malkinshaw for agrandmother, her ladyship's daughter for a mother, and FrancisJames Softly, Esq., M. D. (commonly called Doctor Softly), for afather. I put my father last, because he was not so wellconnected as my mother, and my grandmother first, because she wasthe most nobly-born person of the three. I have been, am still,and may continue to be, a Rogue; but I hope I am not abandonedenough yet to forget the respect that is due to rank. On thisaccount, I trust, nobody will show such want of regard for myfeelings as to expect me to say much about my mother's brother.That inhuman person committed an outrage on his family by makinga fortune in the soap and candle trade. I apologize formentioning him, even in an accidental way. The fact is, he leftmy sister, Annabella, a legacy of rather a peculiar kind, saddledwith certain conditions which indirectly affected me; but thispassage of family history need not be produced just yet. Iapologize a second time for alluding to money matters before itwas absolutely necessary. Let me get back to a pleasing andreputable subject, by saying a word or two more about my father.

I am rather afraid that Doctor Softly was not a clever medicalman; for in spite of his great connections, he did not get a verymagnificent practice as a physician.

As a general practitioner, he might have bought a comfortablebusiness, with a house and snug surgery-shop attached; but theson-in-law of Lady Malkinshaw was obliged to hold up his head,and set up his carriage, and live in a street near a fashionablesquare, and keep an expensive and clumsy footman to answer thedoor, instead of a cheap and tidy housemaid. How he managed to"maintain his position" (that is the right phrase, I think), Inever could tell. His wife did not bring him a farthing. When thehonorable and gallant baronet, her father, died, he left thewidowed Lady Malkinshaw with her worldly affairs in a curiouslyinvolved state. Her son (of whom I feel truly ashamed to beobliged to speak again so soon) made an effort to extricate hismother--involved himself in a series of pecuniary disasters,which commercial people call, I believe, transactions--struggledfor a little while to get out of them in the character of anindependent gentleman--failed--and then spiritlessly availedhimself of the oleaginous refuge of the soap and candle trade.His mother always looked down upon him after this; but borrowedmoney of him also--in order to show, I suppose, that her maternalinterest in her son was not quite extinct. My father tried tofollow her example--in his wife's interests, of course; but thesoap-boiler brutally buttoned up his pockets, and told my fatherto go into business for himself. Thus it happened that we werecertainly a poor family, in spite of the fine appearance we made,the fashionable street we lived in, the neat brougham we kept,and the clumsy and expensive footman who answered our door.

What was to be done with me in the way of education?

If my father had consulted his means, I should have been sent toa cheap commercial academy; but he had to consult hisrelationship to Lady Malkinshaw; so I was sent to one of the mostfashionable and famous of the great public schools. I will notmention it by name, because I don't think the masters would beproud of my connection with it. I ran away three times, and wasflogged three times. I made four aristocratic connections, andhad four pitched battles with them: three thrashed me, and one Ithrashed. I learned to play at cricket, to hate rich people, tocure warts, to write Latin verses, to swim, to recite speeches,to cook kidneys on toast, to draw caricatures of the masters, toconstrue Greek plays, to black boots, and to receive kicks andserious advice resignedly. Who will say that the fashionablepublic school was of no use to me after that?

After I left school, I had the narrowest escape possible ofintruding myself into another place of accommodation fordistinguished people; in other words, I was very nearly beingsent to college. Fortunately for me, my father lost a lawsuitjust in the nick of time, and was obliged to scrape togetherevery farthing of available money that he possessed to pay forthe luxury of going to law. If he could have saved his sevenshillings, he would certainly have sent me to scramble for aplace in the pit of the great university theater; but his pursewas empty, and his son was not eligible therefore for admission,in a gentlemanly capacity, at the doors.

The next thing was to choose a profession.

Here the Doctor was liberality itself, in leaving me to my owndevices. I was of a roving adventurous temperament, and I shouldhave liked to go into the army. But where was the money to comefrom, to pay for my commission? As to enlisting in the ranks, andworking my way up, the social institutions of my country obligedthe grandson of Lady Malkinshaw to begin military life as anofficer and gentleman, or not to begin it at all. The army,therefore, was out of the question. The Church? Equally out ofthe question: since I could not pay for admission to the preparedplace of accommodation for distinguished people, and could notaccept a charitable free pass, in consequence of my highconnections. The Bar? I should be five years getting to it, andshould have to spend two hundred a year in going circuit before Ihad earned a farthing. Physic? This really seemed the onlygentlemanly refuge left; and yet, with the knowledge of myfather's experience before me, I was ungrateful enough to feel asecret dislike for it. It is a degrading confession to make; butI remember wishing I was not so highly connected, and absolutelythinking that the life of a commercial traveler would have suitedme exactly, if I had not been a poor g entleman. Driving aboutfrom place to place, living jovially at inns, seeing fresh facesconstantly, and getting money by all this enjoyment, instead ofspending it--what a life for me, if I had been the son of ahaberdasher and the grandson of a groom's widow!

While my father was uncertain what to do with me, a newprofession was suggested by a friend, which I shall repent nothaving been allowed to adopt, to the last day of my life. Thisfriend was an eccentric old gentleman of large property, muchrespected in our family. One day, my father, in my presence,asked his advice about the best manner of starting me in life,with due credit to my connections and sufficient advantage tomyself.

"Listen to my experience," said our eccentric friend, "and, ifyou are a wise man, you will make up your mind as soon as youhave heard me. I have three sons. I brought my eldest son up tothe Church; he is said to be getting on admirably, and he costsme three hundred a year. I brought my second son up to the Bar;he is said to be getting on admirably, and he costs me fourhundred a year. I brought my third son up to

Ah, me! if that worthy sage's advice had only been followed--if Ihad been brought up to Quadrilles!--if I had only been cast looseon the ballrooms of London, to qualify under Hymen, for a goldendegree! Oh! you young ladies with money, I was five feet ten inmy stockings; I was great at small-talk and dancing; I had glossywhiskers, curling locks, and a rich voice! Ye girls with goldenguineas, ye nymphs with crisp bank-notes, mourn over the husbandyou have lost among you--over the Rogue who has broken the lawswhich, as the partner of a landed or fund-holding woman, he mighthave helped to make on the benches of the British Parliament! Oh!ye hearths and homes sung about in so many songs--written aboutin so many books--shouted about in so many speeches, withaccompaniment of so much loud cheering: what a settler on thehearth-rug; what a possessor of property; what a bringer-up of afamily, was snatched away from you, when the son of Dr. Softlywas lost to the profession of Quadrilles!

It ended in my resigning myself to the misfortune of being adoctor.

If I was a very good boy and took pains, and carefully mixed inthe best society, I might hope in the course of years to succeedto my father's brougham, fashionably-situated house, and clumsyand expensive footman. There was a prospect for a lad of spirit,with the blood of the early Malkinshaws (who were Rogues of greatcapacity and distinction in the feudal times) coursingadventurous through every vein! I look back on my career, andwhen I remember the patience with which I accepted a medicaldestiny, I appear to myself in the light of a hero. Nay, I evenwent beyond the passive virtue of accepting my destiny--Iactually studied, I made the acquaintance of the skeleton, I wason friendly terms with the muscular system, and the mysteries ofPhysiology dropped in on me in the kindest manner whenever theyhad an evening to spare.

Even this was not the worst of it. I disliked the abstrusestudies of my new profession; but I absolutely hated the diurnalslavery of qualifying myself, in a social point of view, forfuture success in it. My fond medical parent insisted onintroducing me to his whole connection. I went round visiting inthe neat brougham--with a stethoscope and medical review in thefront-pocket, with Doctor Softly by my side, keeping his facewell in view at the window--to canvass for patients, in thecharacter of my father's hopeful successor. Never have I been soill at ease in prison, as I was in that carriage. I have feltmore at home in the dock (such is the natural depravity andperversity of my disposition) than ever I felt in thedrawing-rooms of my father's distinguished patrons andrespectable friends. Nor did my miseries end with the morningcalls. I was commanded to attend all dinner-parties, and to makemyself agreeable at all balls. The dinners were the worst trial.Sometimes, indeed, we contrived to get ourselves asked to thehouses of high and mighty entertainers, where we ate the finestFrench dishes and drank the oldest vintages, and fortifiedourselves sensibly and snugly in that way against the frigidityof the company. Of these repasts I have no hard words to say; itis of the dinners we gave ourselves, and of the dinners whichpeople in our rank of life gave to us, that I now bitterlycomplain.

Have you ever observed the remarkable adherence to set forms ofspeech which characterizes the talkers of arrant nonsense!Precisely the same sheepish following of one given exampledistinguishes the ordering of genteel dinners.

When we gave a dinner at home, we had gravy soup, turbot andlobster-sauce, haunch of mutton, boiled fowls and tongue,lukewarm oyster-patties and sticky curry for side-dishes; wildduck, cabinet-pudding, jelly, cream and tartlets. All excellentthings, except when you have to eat them continually. We livedupon them entirely in the season. Every one of our hospitablefriends gave us a return dinner, which was a perfect copy ofours--just as ours was a perfect copy of theirs, last year. Theyboiled what we boiled, and we roasted what they roasted. We noneof us ever changed the succession of the courses--or made more orless of them--or altered the position of the fowls opposite themistress and the haunch opposite the master. My stomach used toquail within me, in those times, when the tureen was taken offand the inevitable gravy-soup smell renewed its dailyacquaintance with my nostrils, and warned me of the persistenteatable formalities that were certain to follow. I suppose thathonest people, who have known what it is to get no dinner (beinga Rogue, I have myself never wanted for one), have gone throughsome very acute suffering under that privation. It may be someconsolation to them to know that, next to absolute starvation,the same company-dinner, every day, is one of the hardest trialsthat assail human endurance. I date my first seriousdetermination to throw over the medical profession at theearliest convenient opportunity, from the second season's seriesof dinners at which my aspirations, as a rising physician,unavoidably and regularly condemned me to be present.