His great fault was an entire absence of that principle which should have induced him, as the son of a man without fortune, to earn his own bread.

Many attempts had been made to get him to do so, but these had all been frustrated, not so much by idleness on his part as by a disinclination to exert himself in any way not to his taste.

He had been educated at Eton and had been intended for the Church, but he had left Cambridge in disgust after a single term, and notified to his father his intention to study for the bar.

Preparatory to that, he thought it well that he should attend a German university, and consequently went to Leipzig.

There he remained two years and brought away a knowledge of German and a taste for the fine arts.