CHAPTER II.
THE LITTLE CHEVALIER.
A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A threadbare juggler.
_Comedy of Errors_.
Nay, then, he is a conjuror.
_Henry VI_.
My adventure with Miss Lascelles did me good service, and cured me for some time, at least, of my leaning towards the tender passion.

I consequently devoted myself more closely than ever to my studies--indulged in a passing mania for genealogy and heraldry--began a collection of local geological specimens, all of which I threw away at the end of the first fortnight--and took to rearing rabbits in an old tumble-down summer-house at the end of the garden.

I believe that from somewhere about this time I may also date the commencement of a great epic poem in blank verse, and Heaven knows how many cantos, which was to be called the Columbiad.

It began, I remember, with a description of the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the departure of Columbus, and was intended to celebrate the discovery, colonization, and subsequent history of America.

I never got beyond ten or a dozen pages of the first canto, however, and that Transatlantic epic remains unfinished to this day.
The great event which I have recorded in the preceding chapter took place in the early summer.