to retire to, the short time he stayed, to be more reconcile us to our lot. His thunders out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth rolled innocuous for us: his storms came and uproar went on. We had classics of our near, but never touched us; contrary to own, without being beholden to "insolent Gideon's miracle, while all around were Greece or haughty Rome," that passed drenched, our fleece was dry.* His boys current among us-Peter Wilkins the turned out the better scholars; we, I suspect, Adventures of the Hon. Captain Robert have the advantage in temper. His pupils Boyle the Fortunate Blue Coat Boy and cannot speak of him without something of the like. Or we cultivated a turn for terror allaying their gratitude; the rememmechanic and scientific operations; making brance of Field comes back with all the little sun-dials of paper; or weaving those soothing images of indolence, and summer ingenious parentheses called cat cradles; or slumbers, and work like play, and innocent making dry peas to dance upon the end of a idleness, and Elysian exemptions, and life tin pipe; or studying the art military over itself a "playing holiday." that laudable game "French and English," and a hundred other such devices to pass away the time-mixing the useful with the agreeable — as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle to have seen us. Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect to mix in equal proportion the gentleman, the scholar, and the Christian; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally found to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levee, when he should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first years of their education; and his very highest form seldom proceeded further than two or three of the introductory fables of Phædrus. How things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the proper person to have remedied these abuses, always affected, perhaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. I have not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogether displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and then, with Sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that enjoyed by the Samite, we were cnjoying ourselves at our ease in our little Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his dicipline, and the prospect did but the Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were near enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. We occasionally heard sounds of the Ululantes, and caught glances of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was crampt to barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.† - He would laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble about Rex or at the tristis severitas in vultu, or inspicere in patinas, of Terence — thin jests, which at their first broaching could hardly have had vis enough to move a Roman muscle. - He had two wigs, both pedantic, but of different omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old, discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe to the school, when he made his morning appearance in his passy, or passionate wig. No comet expounded surer.-J. B. had a heavy hand. I have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presume to set your wits at me?"— Nothing was more common than to see him make a headlong entry into the school-room, from his inner recess, or library, and, with turbu * Cowley. In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his coadjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the chroniclers of that sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick, but the town did not give it their sanction.B. used to say of it, in a way of half-complicaent, hall-irony, that it was too classical for representation. - - lent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, "Od's anti-socialities of their predecessors! - You my life, sirrah," (his favourite adjuration) never met the one by chance in the street "I have a great mind to whip you," then, without a wonder, which was quickly diswith as sudden a retracting impulse, fling sipated by the almost immediate sub-appearback into his lair—and, after a cooling lapse ance of the other. Generally arm-in-arm, of some minutes (during which all but the these kindly coadjutors lightened for each culprit had totally forgotten the context) other the toilsome duties of their profession, drive headlong out again, piecing out his and when, in advanced age, one found it imperfect sense, as if it had been some convenient to retire, the other was not long Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell in discovering that it suited him to lay down “and I WILL too.” In his gentler moods, the fasces also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is when the rabidus furor was assuaged, he had rare, to find the same arm linked in yours at resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn what I have heard, to himself, of whipping over the Cicero De Amicitiâ, or some tale of the boy, and reading the Debates, at the same Antique Friendship, which the young heart time; a paragraph, and a lash between; even then was burning to anticipate! which in those times, when parliamentary Co-Grecian with S. was Th, who has oratory was most at a height and flourishing since executed with ability various diplomatic in these realms, was not calculated to impress functions at the Northern courts. Ththe patient with a veneration for the diffuser was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing of graces of rhetoric. speech, with raven locks. - Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta), a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He has the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article, against Sharpe. M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where the regni novitas (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild and unassuming. Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Richards, author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems; a pale, studious Grecian. Then followed poor S-, ill-fated M-! of these the Muse is silent. -- Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual from his hand. when droll squinting W having been caught putting the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect had clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity averred, that he did not know that the thing had been forewarned. This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the oral or declaratory, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was unavoidable. Finding some of Edward's race L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge, in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelligible and ample encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not to compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of C.-when he heard that his old master was on his deathbed: "Poor J. B.! may all his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub boys all head and wings, with no Come back into memory, like as thou wert bottoms to reproach his sublunary infirmities." in the day-spring of thy fancies, with hope Under him were many good and sound like a fiery column before thee the dark scholars bred. First Grecian of my time pillar not yet turned-Samuel Taylor Colewas Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys ridge-Logician, Metaphysician, Bard! and men, since Co-grammar-master (and How have I seen the casual passer through inseparable companion) with Dr. Te. the Cloisters stand still, entranced with adWhat an edifying spectacle did this brace of miration (while he weighed the disproportion friends present to those who remembered the between the speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in that beautiful countenance, with which, for thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries thou wert the Nireus formosus of the school), of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou years thou waxedst not pale at such philo- didst disarm the wrath of infuriated townsophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his damsel, who, incensed by provoking pinch, Greek, or Pindar- -while the walls of the burning tigress-like round, suddenly conold Gray Friars re-echoed to the accents of verted by thy angel-look, exchanged the the inspired charity-boy! - Many were the half-formed terrible bl," for a gentler "wit-combats," to dally awhile with the greeting-“bless thy handsome face!" words of old Fuller,) between him and Next follow two, who ought to be now C. V. Le G, "which two I behold like a alive, and the friends of Elia-the junior Spanish great galleon, and an English man Le G and F; who impelled, the of war; Master Coleridge, like the former, former by a roving temper, the latter by was built far higher in learning, solid, too quick a sense of neglect—ill capable of but slow in his performances. C. V. L., enduring the slights poor Sizars are somewith the English man of war, lesser in times subject to in our seats of learning bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant jest of theirs; or the anticipation of some more material, and, peradventure practical one, of thine own. Extinct are those smiles, with exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp; perishing, one by climate, and one on the plains of Salamanca : Le G, sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured; Fdogged. faithful, anticipative of insult, warmhearted, with something of the old Roman height about him. Fine. frank-hearted Fr, the present master of Hertford, with Marmaduke T—, mildest of Missionaries - and both my good friends stillin my time. - close the catalogue of Grecians THE TWO RACES OF MEN. THE human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall in with one or other of these primary distinctions. The infinite superiority of the former, which I choose to designate as the great race, is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. "He shall serve his brethren." There is something in the air of one of this cast, lean and suspicious; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manners of the other. Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all ages- Alcibiades Falstaff - Sir Richard Steele-our late incomparable Brinsley-what a family likeness in all four! What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower! what rosy gills! what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest, -taking no more thought thau lilies! What contempt for money,-accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross! What a liberal confounding of those pedantic distinctions of meum and tuum! or rather, what a noble simplification of language (beyond Tooke); resolving these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible pronoun adjective! — What near approaches doth he make to the primitive community, — to the extent of one half of the principle at least. ١١١ 121 To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, set forth, like some Alexander, upon borrow!" He is the true taxer who "calleth all the cumbersome luggage of riches, more apt (as world up to be taxed;" and the distance is one sings) as vast between him and one of us, as subsisted between the Augustan Majesty and the poorest obolary Jew that paid it tributepittance at Jerusalem!- His exactions, too, he have such a cheerful, voluntary air! So far his great enterprise, "borrowing and to removed from your sour parochial or stategatherers, those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of welcome in their faces! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt; confining himself tó no set season. Every day is his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the lene tormentum of a pleasant look to your purse, which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the traveller, for which sun and wind contended! He is the true Propontic which never ebbeth! The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's hand. In vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honour, struggles with destiny; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O man ordained to lend that thou lose not in the end, with thy, worldly penny, the reversion promised. Combine not preposterously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and of Dives!-but, when thou seest the proper authority coming, meet it smilingly as it were half-way. Come, a handsome sacrifice! See how light he makes of it! Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy. In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it has been calculated that he laid a tythe part of the inhabitants under contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated: - but having had the honour of accompanying my friend divers times, in his perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at first with the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so obliging as to explain the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries; feeders of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to express himself), to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a loan. Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. He rather took a pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be "stocked with so fair a herd." A With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had often in his mouth, that " money kept longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it while it was fresh. Reflections like the foregoing were forced good part he drank away (for he was an upon my mind by the death of my old excellent toss-pot); some he gave away, the friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who parted this rest he threw away, literally tossing and life, on Wednesday evening; dying, as hurling it violently from him-as boys do he had lived, without much trouble. He burrs, or as if it had been infectious,- into boasted himself a descendant from mighty ponds, or ditches, or deep holes, inscrutable ancestors of that name, who heretofore cavities of the earth;-or he would bury it held ducal dignities in this realm. In (where he would never seek it again) by a his actions and sentiments be belied not river's side under some bank, which (he the stock to which he pretended. Early in would facetiously observe) paid no interest life he found himself invested with ample but out away from him it must go revenues; which, with that noble disinterest- peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring into the edness which I have noticed as inherent wilderness, while it was sweet. He never in men of the great race, he took almost missed it. The streams were perennial immediate measures entirely to dissipate which fed his fisc. When new supplies beand bring to nothing: for there is some- came necessary, the first person that had thing revolting in the idea of a king holding the felicity to fall in with him, friend or a private purse; and the thoughts of Bigod stranger, was sure to contribute to the were all regal. Thus furnished by the deficiency. For Bigod had an undeniable very act of disfurnishment; getting rid of the way with him. He had a cheerful, open He exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched with grey (cana fides). anticipated no excuse, and found none And, waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, I would put it to the most untheorising reader, who may at times have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, by his mump ing visnomy, tells you, that he expects nothing better; and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in reality so much less shock in the refusal. The slight vacuum in the left-hand case— two shelves from the ceiling-scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loserwas whilom the commodious resting-place of Brown on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, and was in deed the first (of the moderns) to discover its beauties but so have I known a foolish lover to praise his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her off than himself. Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona is! The remainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons When I think of this man; his fiery when the Fates borrowed Hector. Here glow of heart; his swell of feeling; how stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in magnificent, how ideal he was; how great sober state. There loitered the Complete at the midnight hour; and when I com- Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream pare with him the companions with whom side. In yonder nook, John Buncle, a I have associated since, I grudge the saving widower-volume, with "eyes closed," mourns of a few idle ducats, and think that I am his ravished mate. fallen into the society of lenders, and little men. One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, sweeps away a To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather treasure, at another time, sea-like, he throws cased in leather covers than closed in iron up as rich an equivalent to match it. I have coffers, there is a class of alienators more a small under-collection of this nature (my formidable than that which I have touched friend's gatherings in his various calls), upon; I mean your borrowers of books-picked up, he has forgotten at what odd those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch, matchless in his depredations! places, and deposited with as little memory at mine. I take in these orphans, the twicedeserted. These proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalised. The latter seem as little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am. - I charge no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth knocked out(you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, reader!) with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing) once held the tallest of my folios, Opera Bonaventura, choice and To lose a volume to C. carries some sense massy divinity, to which its two supporters and meaning in it. You are sure that he (school divinity also, but of a lesser calibre, will make one hearty meal on your viands, Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas), showed but if he can give no account of the platter after as dwarfs, itself an Ascapart!-that Com-it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful berbatch abstracted upon the faith of a theory K., to be so importunate to carry off with he holds, which is more easy, I confess, for thee, in spite of tears and abjurations to thee me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that to forbear, the Letters of that princely "the title to property in a book (my Bona- woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle? venture, for instance), is in exact ratio to the-knowing at the time, and knowing that I claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the same." Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves is safe? knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio:- what hut the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better |