This only son and heir Mr Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the
name of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a
fit of _toedium vitae_, and had been eulogised by a coroner's jury in
the comprehensive phrase of _felo de se_; on which account, Mr Glowry
held his memory in high honour, and made a punchbowl of his skull.
When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school,
where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence
to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was
sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head:
having finished his education to the high satisfaction of the
master and fellows of his college, who had, in testimony of their
approbation, presented him with a silver fish-slice, on which his name
figured at the head of a laudatory inscription in some semi-barbarous
dialect of Anglo-Saxonised Latin.
His fellow-students, however, who drove tandem and random in great
perfection, and were connoisseurs in good inns, had taught him to
drink deep ere he departed. He had passed much of his time with these
choice spirits, and had seen the rays of the midnight lamp tremble
on many a lengthening file of empty bottles.
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