uncertain, but his master, who probably disco vered the latent talents of the boy beneath the natural indolence of his character, (for he had ventured to prophecy to Bentley, that he would make his grandson as good a scholar as himself; to which the haughty pedant replied, "Pshaw, Arthur, how can that be, when I have forgot more than thou ever knew'st?"*) effectually roused him from the torpor which seemed to possess his faculties. He did this in a manner well calculated to fire a generous mind with emulation.

One day he called the loitering school-boy to his chair; there was an unbroken, and to the delinquent, an awful silence in the room; every eye was fixed upon him, every ear was attentive; all was solemn expectation in the youthful assembly. Kinsman reproved him in a tone of voice loud enough to render every syllable of what he said audible; and, among other topics of reprehension, he asked him in what manner he was to report his progress to his grandfather Bentley? At that name the young offender trembled, for even then he had learned to venerate it: he was abashed and confounded; he felt all the force of the question, and a fervent resolution awoke within him to redeem the hours he had trifled away, and justify the

* Pointed and sarcastic replies are successively related, with little adherence to truth. I have seen this answer of Bentley's applied to Doctor Gooch, as the person who provoked it. "I have FORGOTTEN," said the awful Aristarch, more learning than he POSSESSES." It is likely, however, that Cumberland would be right.

hopes of his master and his illustrious grandfather. This resolution was not a momentary blaze, emitting a transitory heat and lustre, and then sinking into smoke and darkness; it was a fire kindled in his bosom which kept his purpose warm, and the good effect of the admonition, thus judiciously applied, operated probably for many years upon the progress of his studies.

Shortly after this occurrence, however, he fell ill, and was removed home, where he languished in sickness for some time. When he returned to school he soon recovered the good opinion of Kinsman, by his diligence and regularity.

About this time Bentley died, and Cumberland, who was old enough to know something of the loss of such a man, lamented it with as much sorrow as can belong, without hypocrisy, to boyhood. Of this great man, before we take a final leave, (if indeed this can be called such, as I shall have occasion to mention him again, in noticing the controversy between Cumberland and Mr. Hayley) the reader may not be displeased to read the following anecdotes; or if he be, his displeasure cannot hold him long, for they are very brief.

In a conversation between Kinsman and Bentley, upon the merits of Homer, Kinsman quoted Joshua Barnes as a man well versed in Greek, and speaking it almost like his mother tongue. "Yes," replied Bentley, "I do believe that Barnes had as

much Greek, and understood it about as well, as an Athenian blacksmith.*

Of Warburton, then just rising into fame, he said, "there seemed to be in him a voracious appetite for knowledge; he doubted if there was a good digestion."

His opinion of Pope's Homer is awkwardly related by Cumberland. A better account is the following, which was communicated to the "Gentleman's Magazine," by a correspondent, in the year 1778, and which contains an anecdote of the poet likewise, not very generally known, I believe.

Atterbury, having Pope and Bentley both at his table one day, insisted upon knowing the latter's opinion of the English Homer. He evaded the question thus put, for some time; but being pressed by Atterbury, he at last said, "The verses are good verses, but the work is not Homer, it is

* This anecdote I have seen differently related, and in a manner more like Bentley. "Barnes," said he, " had some knowledge in the Greek language; almost as much as an Athenian cobbler, but was, in all other respects, a very poor creature indeed: felicis memoria, as the burlesque epitaph upon him, says: expectans judicium. See a paper of verses upon him in the Musæ Anglicanæ, entitled Sub Professor Linguæ Græcæ,' which shews what a contempt even the boys at Cambridge had for him."

It may be doubted, however, whether there be not more praise than censure in ascribing to Barnes as much Greek as an Athenian cobbler possessed; especially if there be any truth in the opinion which Addison has somewhere expressed, that a Roman ploughman probably spoke purer Latin than the most accomplished modern scholar.

Spondamus." To this provocation, which Atterbury probably anticipated, and secretly wished, perhaps, for he bore Bentley no good will, may be ascribed Pope's known hostility to the modern Aristarchus; but when he appeared in the Dunciad, his son, Dr. Richard Bentley, was so incensed, that he sent the poet a challenge. Pope communicated this to some of his friends who were officers in the army, and who, deeming it preposterous that a man of his personal deformity should accept a challenge, waited upon the challenger, told him their reasons for Pope's declining the business, and offered him the choice of either of themselves as a proxy on the occasion. But this did not suit the doctor's courage, and thus the business dropped.

Kinsman communicated the death of Bentley to his grandson with much tenderness, and kindly strove to soothe the little sorrows which he expected the intelligence might create. The sorrows were transient, and the pupil resumed his vigorous determination of earning the approbation of his master. Success followed: he soon reached the highest place in the school, and kept it, though he mentions, among his competitors, the late Dr. Warren, and his brother the bishop.

Cumberland has not been very exact in his dates, and what he has omitted it cannot be expected that I should supply. This deficiency occasions much perplexity in reading his Memoirs,

and must have been the effect either of intention or of negligence, for it cannot have been that he who remembered every thing which happened, should have forgotten when it happened.

During the time that he was with Kinsman, he produced his first attempt in English verse; but the subject was as ill chosen as the performance was wretched, if the whole may be judged from the little that is preserved. He made an excursion with his family into Hampshire, and he thought a description of his journey, of the Docks at Portsmouth, and of the races at Winchester, would harmonise well with English heroics. The following was one of the couplets :

Here they weave cables, there they mainmasts form,
Here they forge anchors-useful in a storm.

These lines his mother very justly ridiculed; but his father, from what motive it is not easy to conjecture, strenuously defended and approved them. Literary puerilities should be sparingly commended; for the surest way to make a matured coxcomb is to praise infant follies.

After the death of Bentley his father resided wholly at the parsonage-house of Stanwick, near Higham Ferrars, in Northamptonshire; a rural retreat, of which Cumberland speaks with tender emotion, associated, as it must have been, in his mind, with the recollections of those blessed hours of life which no man looks back upon but with