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city either outwardly or inwardly, they seemed only the usual attendants of active and energetic faculties*. Add to this, that his manner and action were formed upon no model of elegance or grace. "Na

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ture herself might have called him eloquent," but nobody else would, who had seen his unseemly and strange mouthing even in latest life, in endeavouring to convey his impressions, which were eminently strong, or his feelings, which were much stronger, say on any passage of Virgil, Cicero's Orations, Shakespeare, Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, &c. &c. ; he was wrought up and carried away into more droll gesticulation than his general attention to reason would have allowed his hearers to expect. These circumstances might have been uncommon enough to make him famous in the schools of the university; and with his ardour and acuteness in disputation, caused them to be well attended on his act. One of his most intimate friends used to amuse Dr. Paley and his family with relating his appearance in the schools under the warmth of argument. On being posed by his adversary, he would stand with his head

I have seen in some magazine, or periodical publication, an accurate description of his appearance in his lecture-room, with his night-cap, his breeches knees unbuttoned, his stockings awry, one leg upon his knee, lounging on his chair, and picking his beard. This is forcibly and painfully striking, as agreeing exactly with the figure that I should have been tempted to present of our constant, and first and most diligent instructor, when coming from school to breakfast, we took our stand with our grammar lesson in his study. ED.

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dropping upon one of his shoulders, and both his thumbs in his mouth; on striking out his answer with the animation of a ɛuρ he would stretch his arms, rub his hands, and speak out his exultation in every feature of his face and muscle of his body. He seems to have been quite wrapped up in his subject; so much so, that his ardour, both at that time and in more grave and weighty discussions afterwards, must have met with hearers unobserving indeed, if they were not struck with it, and indifferent, if they were not interested. It has been said that his promptitude of delivery, and strength of conception, did more for him in the senate-house examination than his mathematical acquirements; and his fluent delivery* has been spoken of as rather signal in his lecture-room; it be well therefore to observe, that if any judgement can be formed from a later period (when it might be supposed that habit and practice would have added to his manner of expression), his delivery, though not hesitating, was considerably embarrassed. He seemed to labour with the very liveliness of his conceptions, agreeably to Dean Swift's simile, "persons rushing out of church block up the doorway." So very rapid was the flow of his ideas, and so wide the range of his conceptions, that between hunting out proper expressions of them, and preserving his short and pithy mode of delivering his sentiments, his language was full of unevennesses, and his enun

may

* Meadley.

ciation rather entangled. A periodical publication*, in its review of Meadley's Memoirs, has observed, with somewhat more taste than accuracy, on the singularity of a circumstance which seems very doubtfult, that the first production of his pen should have been an ode in the manner of Ossian. But the accompanying remark, "that he never afterwards showed any one particle of taste for poetry," is an assumption. He was by no means deficient in either his taste or his fondness for poetry. He might indeed inherit from his father an imagination sufficiently discursive, and in his school-boy days he was partial to scribbling little pieces of rhyme; and afterwards he improved his taste by an acquaintance with, and constant habit of dipping into, most of our English poets. His constant ardour, as well as elasticity of mind, gave abundant room for his being anxious, as well as the elegance and soundness of his taste did of his being able, to relish them. It is not improbable, that whatever enthusiasm he possessed when young gave way to a stronger and more matured power of reason.

This remark naturally introduces another which is authorised indeed, "nullis in hoc suis sermonibus sed quia par videbatur," as well as by its standing

* Quarterly Review.

+ What leads me to doubt of this circumstance is, that he gave me a copy of the Luctus Cantabrigiensis on that occasion, and pointed out some pieces that were thought eminently dull in his day, but said nothing of himself or his own attempts. ED.

uncontradicted in the work above alluded to*, and by the habits of his life afterwards, viz. that he did not follow up either mathematical or metaphysical learning at all, any farther than suited his office of tutor. There are reasons for thinking that he viewed them only in the light of opening and preparing the mind for more useful studies, for studies at least more congenial to the cast of his own mind. He never certainly made either an object or an amusement of them afterwards. If this opinion should be correct, it will serve at least to show the facility with which only a short and unwearied attention attains its object, even against the stronger bent of inclination; for he has been heard to say, that he did not know that he ever perfectly worked a simple rule of three question, or did more in arithmetic than add up his

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On taking his degree, he was desirous of working his own way, and bent upon sparing his father's money, which he had always obtained when he applied for it; but such applications were neither frequent, nor accompanied by much observation besides, from which any thing can be collected of his undergraduateship. He offered first to take the situation of usher in his father's school, and upon being desired to carve out his own way without stopping or preventing his views by any attention to his father, accepted an offer soon made to him by his tutor, Mr.

* Public Characters.

Shepherd, of a similar situation in an academy at Greenwich. He often described this as a woful drudgery, though he now set out first in the world in a way that suited well enough his prevailing taste for observation on men and manners. It may seem indeed surprising, and it has surprised many, who value literary distinction only as it adds to a man's worldly interest, that a youth of nineteen, with the highest honour of the university fresh upon him, should sit down so easily to the drudgery of an academy, or even to the more exalted task of communicating instruction in a college lecture-room; but let it be considered, that in all situations, he never was known to flinch from labour, or to dislike the mere circumstances of his lot; in all he was resolved to do his best, and he who found entertainment and interest in every thing, might be easily led by his superior powers to make entertainment of even carrying on instruction. He seems to have been easily weaned from any desire for home, by the consideration of being both useful to himself, and holding himself in readiness for any opening in the university. His near neighbourhood too to London, where he was a constant attendant on the houses of parliament, the theatre, and when a holiday would allow, on the courts of law, where he took an especial interest "in the fate of his friends," the prisoners, as he used to call them, was sufficient with him to compensate for many more unpleasant circumstances than he had to endure. The acting of Garrick would at any time

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