Incertaque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis This is unquestionably a fine passage and a sublime moral, but I rather suspect there is a quaintness, and something of what the Italians call concetto, in the concluding line, that is not quite in the style and cast of the purer age. The tasks of a school-boy are of three descriptions; he is to give the construction of his author, to study his repetitions, and to write what are called his exercises, whether in verse or prose. In the former two, the tasks of construing and saying by heart, it was the usage of our school to challenge for places: In this province my good fortune was unclouded; in my exercises I did not succeed so well, for by aiming at something like fancy and invention. I was too frequently betrayed into grammatical errors, whilst my rivals presented exercises with fewer faults, and, by attempting scarcely any thing, hazarded little. These premature and imperfect sallies, which I gave way to, did me no credit with my master, and once in particular upon my giving in a copy of Latin verses, unpardonably incorrect, though not entirely void of imagination, he commented upon my blunders with great severity, and in the hearing of my form-fellows threatened to degrade me from my station at their head. I had earned that station by hard labour and unceasing assiduity; I had maintained it against their united efforts for some years, and the dread of being at once deprived of what they had not been able to take from me, had such an effect on my sensibility, that I never perfectly recovered it, and probably should at no time after have gained any credit in that branch of my school-business, had I not been transplanted to Westminster. The exercise, for which I was reprehended, I well remember was a copy of verses upon Phalaris's bull, which bull I confess led me into some blunders, that my master might have observed upon with more temper. I stood in need of instruction, and he inflicted discouragement. Though I love the memory of my good old master, and am under infinite obligations to his care and kindness, yet having severely experienced how poignant are the inflictions of discouragement to the feelings, and how repulsive to the efforts of the unformed embryo genius, I cannot state this circumstance in any better light than as an oversight in point of education, which, though well-intentioned on his part, could only operate to destroy what it was his object to improve. When the talents of a young and rising author shall be found to profit by the denunciations and brow-beatings of his hypercritical contemporaries, then, and not till then, it will be right to train up our children according to this system, and discouragement be the best model for education, which the conductors of it can adopt. As our master had lately discontinued his custom of letting his boys act a play of Terence before the Christmas holidays, after the example of Westminster, some of us undertook without his leave, though probably not without his knowledge and connivance, to get up the tragedy of Cato at one of the boarding-houses, and invite the gentry of the town to be present at our childish exhibition. We escaped from school one evening, and climbed the wall that intercepted us from the scene of action, to prepare ourselves for this goodly show. A full bottomed periwig for Cato, and female attire for Portia and Marcia borrowed from the maids of the lodging house were the chief articles of our scanty wardrobe, and of a piece with the wretchedness of our property was the wretchedness of our performance. Our audience however, which was not very select, endured us and we slept upon our laurels, till the next morning being made to turn out for the amusement of the whole school, and go through a scene or two of our evening's entertainment, we acquitted ourselves so little to the satisfaction of Mr. Kinsman, that after bestowing some hearty buffets upon the virtuous Marcia, who had towered above her sex in the person of a most ill-favoured wry-necked boy, the rest of our dramatis persona were sentenced to the fine of an imposition, and dismissed, The part of Juba had been my cast, and the tenth satire of Juvenal was my portion of the fine inflicted. It was about this time I made my first attempt in English verse, and took for my subject an excursion I had made with my family in the summer holidays to visit a relation in amusements. Hampshire, which engaged me in a description of the docks at Portsmouth, and of the races at Winchester, where I had been present. I believe my poem was not short of a hundred lines, and was written at such times as I could snatch a few minutes from my business or I did not like to risk the consequences of confiding it to my school-fellows, but kept it closely secret till the next breaking up, when I exhibited it to my father, who received it after his gracious manner with unreserved commendation, and persisted in reciting it to his intimates, when I had gained experience enough to wish he had consigned it to oblivion. Though I have no copy of this childish performance, I bear in my remembrance two introductory couplets, which were the first English lines I ever wrote, and are as follows Since every seribbler claims his share of fame, One other lame and miserable couplet just now occurs to me, as being quoted frequently upon me by my mother as an instance in the |