He was ambitious, but for honours and station obtained by his own endeavours not conferred by another.

From his earliest youth he had grown up with so strong an impression that he was intended for the Church, that he considered it impossible any other profession could suit him better.

When he mingled intimately at college with young men of higher rank and higher hopes, he discovered too late that a clergyman's life was not such as to render him most happy; but he could not draw back, he would not so disappoint his father.

He felt and knew, to obtain the summit of his desires, to be placed in a public situation, where his ambition would have full scope, required a much larger fortune than his father possessed.

He clothed himself in what he believed to be resignation and contentment, but which was in truth a morbid sensitiveness to his lot in life, which he imagined poverty would separate from every other.