At length, arriving at a deep and rapid river,
"this satire on the animal creation, as if to revenge
herself on us for our sarcasms, plunged into the river, then
very high by the freshet, and was wafted down the current
like a bag of oats! I could hardly sit on my horse for
laughter. I am apt to laugh at the vexations of my friends.
The fellow, who was of my own age, and my room-mate, half
checked the current by oaths as big as lobsters, and the old
Rosinante, who was all the while much at her ease, floated
up among the willows far below on the opposite side of the
river."
At the same time he was an innocent young man. If he had any wild oats
in his composition, they were not sown in the days of his youth.
Expecting to pass his life as a country lawyer, having scarcely a
premonition of his coming renown, we find him enjoying the simple
country sports and indulging in the simple village ambitions. He tried
once for the captaincy of a company of militia, and was not elected;
he canvassed a whole regiment to get his brother the post of adjutant,
and failed.
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