Wednesday, Nine.  Alarmed with a pain in my ankle.  Q. The gout?  Fear I can’t dine at Peterhouse; but I hope a ride will set all to rights.  Weather-glass below Fair.

Ditto, Ten.  Mounted my horse, though the weather suspicious.  Pain in my ankle entirely gone.  Caught in a shower coming back.  Convinced that my weather-glass is the best in Cambridge.

Ditto, Twelve.  Drest.  Sauntered up to the Fish-monger’s hill.  Met Mr. H. and went with him to Peterhouse.  Cook made us wait thirty-six minutes beyond the time.  The company, some of my Emmanuel friends.  For dinner, a pair of soles, a leg of pork and pease, among other things.  Mem.  Pease-pudding not boiled enough.  Cook reprimanded and sconced in my presence.

Ditto, after Dinner.  Pain in my ankle returns.  Dull all the afternoon.  Rallied for being no company.  Mr. H.’s account of the accommodations on the road in his Bath journey.

Ditto, Six.  Got into spirits.  Never was more chatty.  We sat late at whist.  Mr. H. and self agreed at parting to take a gentle ride, and dine at the old house on the London road to-morrow.

Thursday, Nine.  My sempstress.  She has lost the measure of my wrist.  Forced to be measured again.  The baggage has got a trick of smiling.

Ditto, Ten to Eleven.  Made some rappee snuff.  Read the magazines.  Received a present of pickles from Miss Pilcocks.  Mem.  To send in return some collared eel, which I know both the old lady and miss are fond of.

Ditto, Eleven.  Glass very high.  Mounted at the gate with Mr. H. Horse skittish, and wants exercise.  Arrive at the old house.  All the provisions bespoke by some rakish fellow-commoner in the next room, who had been on a scheme to Newmarket.  Could get nothing but mutton-chops off the worst end.  Port very new.  Agree to try some other house to-morrow.

Here the journal breaks off:  for the next morning, as my friend informs me, our genial academick was waked with a severe fit of the gout; and, at present, enjoys all the dignity of that disease.  But I believe we have lost nothing by this interruption:  since a continuation of the remainder of the journal, through the remainder of the week, would most probably have exhibited nothing more than a repeated relation of the same circumstances of idling and luxury.

I hope it will not be concluded, from this specimen of academick life, that I have attempted to decry our universities.  If literature is not the essential requisite of the modern academick, I am yet persuaded, that Cambridge and Oxford, however degenerated, surpass the fashionable academies of our metropolis, and the gymnasia of foreign countries.  The number of learned persons in these celebrated seats is still considerable, and more conveniencies and opportunities for study still subsist in them, than in any other place.  There is at least one very powerful incentive to learning; I mean the GENIUS of