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This school, when I came to it, was in high reputation, and numbered a hundred and fifty boys. Kinsman was an excellent master, a very sufficient scholar, and had all the professional requisites of voice, air and aspect, that marked him out at first sight as a personage decidedly made on purpose-habere imperium in pueros. In his hands I can truly witness the reins of empire never slackened, but we did not murmur against his authority, for with all his warmth of temper he was kind, cordial, open-hearted, and an impartial administrator of punishments and praises, as they were respectively deserved. His name was high in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, and the chief families in those parts were present with him in the persons of their representatives, and some yet living can bear witness to the vigor of his arm. He was fiery zealous for the honor of his school, which by the terms of his establishment was subject to the visitation of those who were in the government of it, and I remember, upon a certain occasion, when these gentlemen entered the school-room, in the execution of their office (I being then in the rostrum in the act of construing Juvenal), he ordered me to proceed without noticing their appearance, and something having passed to give him offence against one of their number in particular, taking up the passage then under immediate recitation, he echoed forth, in a loud and pointed tone of voice

Nos, nostraque lividus odit.

It must be confessed that my good old master had a vaunting kind of style in setting forth his school, and once in conversation with my grandfather in Trinity Lodge, he was so unaccountably misled by the spirit of false prophecy, as to venture to say, in a rallying kind of way-'Master, I will make your grandson as good a scholar as yourself.' scholar as yourself.'-To this Doctor Bentley, in the like vein of raillery, replied-'Pshaw, Arthur, how can that be, when I have forgot more than thou ever knew'st?' Certain it is that my inauspicious beginnings augured very ill for the bold prediction, thus improvidently hazarded; for so supremely idle was I, and so far from being animated by the charms of the Latin grammar, that the labor of instruction was but labor lost, and it seemed a chance if I was destined to arrive at any other acquirement but the art of sinking, in which I regularly proceeded till I found my proper station at the very bottom of my class, which, as far as idleness could be my security, I was likely to take lasting possession of. I am persuaded, however, that the tranquillity of my ignorance would have suffered no interruption from the remonstrances of

the worthy usher of the under-school, who sat in a plaid nightgown and let things take their course, had not the penetrating eye of old Kinsman discovered the grandson of his friend far in the rear of the line of honor, and in a fair train to give the flattest contradiction to his prophecy. Whereupon, one day, which by me can never be forgotten, calling me up to him in his chair at the head of the school, he began with much solemnity and in a loud voice to lecture me very sharply, whilst all eyes were upon me, all ears open, and a dead silence, horrible to my feelings, did not leave a hope that a single word had escaped the notice of my schoolfellows. I well remember his demanding of me what report I could expect him to make of me to my grandfather Bentley. I shuddered at the name, even at that early age so loved and so revered. I made no defence--I had none to make— and he went thundering on, further perhaps than he need to have gone, had he given less scope to his zeal, and trusted more to his intuition, for the keenness of his reproof had sunk into my heart; I was covered with shame and confusion. I retired abashed to my seat, which was the lowest in my class, and that class the lowest save one in the under-school. I hid my face between my hands, resting my head upon the desk before me, and gave myself up to tears and contrition; when I raised my eyes and looked about me, I thought I discovered contempt in the countenances of the boys. At that moment the spirit of emulation, which had not yet awaked in my heart, was thoroughly roused; but whilst I was thus resolving upon a reform I fell ill, whether from agitation of mind or from cause more natural I know not. I was, however, laid up in a sick bed for a considerable time, and in that piteous situation visited by my mother, who came from Cambridge on the alarm, and under her tender care I at length regained both my spirits and my health.

My mother now returned to Cambridge, and I was taken into Kinsman's own house as a boarder, where, being associated with boys of a better description, and more immediately under the eye of my most timely admonisher, I took all the pains that my years would admit of to deserve his better opinion and regain my lost ground. My diligence was soon followed by success, and success encouraged me to fresh exertions.

I presume the teachers of grammar do not expect boys of a very early age to understand it as a body of rules, but merely as an exercise of memory; yet it is well to imprint it on their memories, that they may more readily apply to it as they advance in their acquaintance with the language. I had naturally a good memory, and practice added such a facility of getting by heart, that in my repetitions, when we challenged for

ARTHUR KINSMAN.

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places, I entered the lists with all possible advantages, and soon found myself able to break a lance with the very best of my competitors. The good man in the plaid gown now began to regard me with less than his usual indifference, and my early star was evidently in the ascendant. Such were to me the happy consequences of my worthy master's seasonable admonition.

After the decease of Mrs. Bentley, my mother, whose devotion to her father was returned by the warmest affection on his part, passed much of her time, as my father did of his, at Cambridge; there I also passed my holidays, and the undescribable gratification those delightful seasons gave me hath left traces of the times long past and the persons now dead, that can only be effaced by death, and of their surviving even that I should be loth to lose the hope. I was become capable of understanding my grandfather to be the great man he really was, and began to listen to him with attention, and treasure up his sayings in my mind. I was admitted to dine at his table, had my seat next to his chair, served him in many little offices, and went upon his errands with a promptitude and alacrity that showed what pride I took in such commissions, and tempted his good nature to invent occasions for employing me.

One day, I full well remember, my old master Kinsman walked into the room, and was welcomed by my grandfather with the cordiality natural to him. In the mean time my heart fluttered with alarm and dread of that report which he had once threatened to prefer against me: nothing could be further from his generous thoughts, and as soon as ever he was at leisure to notice such an insignificant little being, it was with the affection and caresses of a father; when I looked in his face, there was no longer any feature of the schoolmaster in it, the terrors of the ferula and the rod were vanished out of sight, and that upright strutting little person, which in authority was so awful, had now relaxed from its rigidity, and no longer strove to swell itself into importance. Arthur, notwithstanding, was a great man on his own ground, and though he venerated the master of Trinity College, he did not renounce a proper self-esteem for the master of Bury School, and the dignity appertaining to that office, which he filled, and to which Bentley himself had once stooped for instruction. He was a gay social fellow, who loved his friend and had no antipathy to his bottle; he had then a kind of dashing discourse, savoring somewhat of the shop, which trifles did not check and contradiction could not daunt. He had at this very time been recreating his spirit with the company in the combination room, and was fairly primed with priestly port. My grandfather, I dare say, discovered nothing of this, and Walker,

who accompanied Kinsman to the lodge, was exactly in that state when silence is the best resort. Arthur, in the mean time, whose tongue conviviality had by no means tied up, began to open his school books upon Bentley, and had drawn him into Homer; Greek now rolled in torrents from the lips of Bentley, and the most learned of moderns chanted forth the inspired rhapsodies of the most illustrious of ancients in a strain delectable indeed to the ear, but not very edifying to poor little me and the ladies; nay, I should even doubt if the master of Bury School understood all that he heard, but that the worthy vice-master of Trinity was innocent of all apprehension, and clear of the plot, if treason was wrapped up in it, I can, upon my knowledge of him, confidently vouch. This, however, I remember, and my mother has frequently, in time past, refreshed my recollection of it, that Joshua Barnes, in the course of this conversation, being quoted by Kinsman, as a man understanding 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 Pope's Homer he said he had read it; it was an elegant poem, but no translation. Of the learned Warburton, then in the outset of his fame, he remarked that there seemed to be in him a voracious appetite for knowledge; he doubted if there was a good digestion. This is an anecdote I refer to those who are competent to make or reject the application.2

1 Joshua Barnes was born at London, on the 10th of January, 1654, and died the 3d of August 1712. Notwithstanding Bentley's disparaging comment on his attainments, Barnes was considered one of the most learned Greek scholars of his day. He was Greek professor at Cambridge, and published an edition of Anacreon and Homer. He is said to have been more remarkable for the quickness of his wit, and the happiness of his memory, than for the solidity of his judgment. As a theologian, he maintained that spiritual sins, such as pride, defamation, &c., were more offensive to God than those which spring from too great an indulgence of the senses.

2 If we judge of Warburton's abilities from the terms in which Dr. Johnson speaks of them, in his edition of Shakspeare, we shall rate them highly. Others of his contemporaries, however, distrusted his learning, and despised his talents. The pride, not to say, the insolence of his manners, made him many enemies. He was once addressed in a pamphlet, 'To the most impudent man alive.'

Warburton was thus referred to in Johnson's celebrated interview with George III. The king said, 'that he heard Dr. Warburton was a man of such general knowledge, that you could scarce talk with him on any subject on which he was not qualified to speak, and that his learning resembled Garrick's acting, in its universality.' His Majesty then talked of the controversy between Warburton and Lowth, which he seemed to have read, and asked Johnson what he thought of it. Johnson answered, 'Warburton has most general, most scholastic learning; Lowth is the more correct scholar. I do not know which of them calls names best.' The king was pleased to say he was of the same opinion; adding, 'You do not think then, Dr. Johnson, that there was

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At no great distance of time from this period, which I have been now recording, Doctor Bentley died, and was buried in Trinity College chapel, by the side of the altar table, where a square, black stone records his name, and nothing more. It remains with the munificence of that rich society to award him other monumental honors, whenever they may think it right to grace his memory with a tablet. He was seized with a complaint that, in his opinion, seemed to indicate a necessity of immediate bleeding; Dr. Heberden, then a young physician, practising in Cambridge, was of a contrary opinion, and the patient acquiesced. His friend, Dr. Wallis, in whose skilful practice and experience he so justly placed his confidence, was, unfortunately, absent from Stamford, and never came upon the summons for any purpose but to share in the sorrows of his family, and lament the noncompliance with the process he had recommended, which, according to his judgment of the case, was the very measure he should himself have taken.

I believe I felt as much affliction as my age was capable of when my master Kinsman imparted the intelligence of my grandfather's death to me, taking me into his private chamber, and lamenting the event with great agitation. Whilst I gave vent to my tears, he pressed me tenderly in his arms, and encouraging me to persist in my diligence, assured me of his favor and protection. He kept me out of school for a few days, gave me private instruction, and then sent me forth, ardently resolved to acquit myself to his satisfaction. From this time, I may truly say my task was my delight. I rose rapidly to the head of my class, and, in the whole course of my progress through the upper school, never once lost my place of head boy, though daily challenged by those who were as anxious to dislodge me from my post as I was to maintain myself in it. As I have the honor to name both Bishop Warren and his brother Richard, the physician, as two amongst the most formidable of my form-fellows, I may venture to say, that school-boy must have been more than commonly alert whom they could not overtake and depose; but the exertion of my competitors was such a spur to my industry and ambition, that my mind was perpetually in its business. Had I, in any careless moment, suffered a discomfiture, my mortification would have been most poignant; but the dread I had of that event caused me always to be prepared against it, and I held possession of my post under a suspended sword, that hourly menaced me without ever dropping.

'Why

much argument in the case.' Johnson said he did not think there was. truly,' said the king, 'when once it comes to calling names, argument is pretty well at an end.'-Boswell's Johnson, vol. ii. p. 39.