part of his duty; and he sometimes shed tears at seeing the pain he felt bound to inflict.

"The Père Caperon was a great Oriental scholar, and was regarded as a master of the Arabic language. He was not employed in teaching the boys (an occupation for which he would have been wholly unfit), but in composing essays upon the mysterious literature of the East. It was one of our favourite amusements to disturb him in his studies. A group would collect under his windows, and assail him with all kinds of stormy noises, when he would rush forth with a huge stick, which made us all take to our heels, and woe betide the urchin on whom he first seized. Oh, petit malheureux ! he would exclaim, as he grasped some intruder upon his meditations, and avenged upon him the losses which Oriental learning had sustained by the trespass which we had committed on his meditations There was one very eloquent preacher, the Père Colman, who was a German by birth, but French in language and manner. He had a most noble bearing; a visage fit for canvas, a deep sonorous voice, and a great command of

pure oratorical diction. He was, however, too valuable to be allowed long to remain in so inferior a spot as Kensington House, and was ordered by the

general of the Jesuits to proceed to Russia. So was Molinari, who acted towards me a part of great kindness and friendship previous to his leaving the establishment. The Prince de Broglie, he informed me, had got himself into great embarrassments, and had made an effort to induce the Jesuits of Stoneyhurst to assist him. With this view he had offered to annex Kensington House to the Anglican province. The English Jesuits were, however, too shrewd to acquiesce in this proposal, and it was manifest the institution must be broken up. Molinari further informed me that he had himself been ordered into the deserts of Siberia, with instructions to penetrate if possible into China as a missionary of the Gospel. He recommended me to write home, and to apprise my friends of what was about to take place, and Stoneyhurst he pointed out as the best seminary which I could select.

"The system of instruction at Kensington was miserably defective. Some attention was paid to composition.

There was also some relish manifested for the beauties of the Latin writers, and pains were taken to make the scholars feel the strength of the expression. But arithmetic, geography, history, were all neglected. A worse course of education cannot be well imagined."*

*Schoolboy Recollections, &c.

In the month of October, 1804, he left Kensington, and proceeded to the College of Stoneyhurst, where he was entered as a student on the 24th of that month. Stoneyhurst, formerly the property of the family of Sherbourne, and subsequently purchased by Mr. Weld, and bequeathed by him to the order of Jesuits, is situated near the town of Clitheroe, in Lancashire. From the principal approach, it presents an imposing aspect. The buildings are spacious, although the original design was never carried to completion, and the extensive walks and grounds bespeak the fortunes of its founders. For the most part, the country around it is flat and uninteresting, the principal feature being the dark ridge of Pendle, which stretches from east to west, at no great distance. The sombre aspect of his new abode was not calculated to dissipate the sense of loneliness which had weighed upon the spirits of the young traveller during his tedious journey from London. The shortening days and the clouded atmosphere, and all the external images around him, combined to cast a chill over his susceptible and imaginative temperament. What sort of place was this? Was its discipline harsh and rigorous? Were its pursuits and pastimes darkened by ascetic gloom? Should he find new

friends and sympathising companions there, or only fellow-subjects under an exacting and unyielding rule of learning? A thousand questions rose within him as he entered the gates of the college; and anxiously his quick eye sought for something that might suggest, in part at least, a solution in what he saw around him. It was not long, however, before his first misgivings were forgotten.

As French was invariably spoken at Kensington school, when he first went to Stoneyhurst he had, in a great degree, forgotten his own language, while he spoke French freely. "His first appearance," says one of his schoolfellows, "I recollect well: it was strikingly grotesque. His face was pale and meagre ; his limbs lank; his hair starting upwards from his head like a brush; a sort of muscular action pervading his whole frame; his dress foreign; his talk broken English, and his voice a squeak. Add to this a pair of singularly brilliant eyes, lighting up all the peculiarities of his figure, and you have before you the boy Sheil. His performances were at first as singular as his person. efforts to kick a football were sui generis. He never engaged in the game along with the other

His

boys, but kept aloof, occupied in reading or walking

about the playground; but whenever the ball was thrown across his path, he used to dart at it with a frantic energy, his legs and arms all pretty equally on the stretch, so that it was out of the question to determine with what limb he would assail the ball, ́until a kick at it, probably from the left leg, solved the problem; and then back he would go to his reading, amid the yells of the urchins, enraged at his disturbing their game."*

The pupils, who numbered about one hundred and fifty at the period in question, were distributed into six classes. The same master usually continued to preside over his class through its several stages, which were denoted by the names of Abecedarians, figures, grammar, syntax, poetry, and rhetoric. "It was my good fortune," observes Mr. Sheil, "to be placed at first in the class of the Rev. Father Laurenson, who was an excellent Latin scholar, and had besides a strong relish for English composition. He was an excellent man, with an exceedingly good heart, with generous and honourable feelings, and entirely free from the suppleness which has been attributed, but in my mind erroneously, to the body to which he belonged The Rev. Mr. Laurenson was a great gaunt man, with a deep

* Mr. Justice Ball; letter to the author.