I have since passed over Putney Common, I have always noticed the
spot where my mother, as we drove along in the coach, admonished me
that I was now going into the world, and must learn to think and act for
myself. The expression may appear ludicrous; yet there is not, in the
course of life, a more remarkable change than the removal of a child
from the luxury and freedom of a wealthy house, to the frugal diet and
strict subordination of a school; from the tenderness of parents, and
the obsequiousness of servants, to the rude familiarity of his equals,
the insolent tyranny of his seniors, and the rod, perhaps, of a cruel
and capricious pedagogue. Such hardships may steel the mind and body
against the injuries of fortune; but my timid reserve was astonished by
the crowd and tumult of the school; the want of strength and activity
disqualified me for the sports of the play-field; nor have I forgotten
how often in the year forty-six I was reviled and buffeted for the
sins of my Tory ancestors. By the common methods of discipline, at the
expence of many tears and some blood, I purchased the knowledge of the
Latin syntax: and not long since I was possessed of the dirty volumes
of Phaedrus and Cornelius Nepos, which I painfully construed and darkly
understood. The choice of these authors is not injudicious. The lives of
Cornelius Nepos, the friend of Atticus and Cicero, are composed in the
style of the purest age: his simplicity is elegant, his brevity copious;
he exhibits a series of men and manners; and with such illustrations,
as every pedant is not indeed qualified to give, this classic biographer
may initiate a young student in the history of Greece and Rome. The use
of fables or apologues has been approved in every age from ancient India
to modern Europe. They convey in familiar images the truths of morality
and prudence; and the most childish understanding (I advert to the
scruples of Rousseau) will not suppose either that beasts do speak, or
that men may lie. A fable represents the genuine characters of animals;
and a skilful master might extract from Pliny and Buffon some pleasing
lessons of natural history, a science well adapted to the taste and
capacity of children. The Latinity of Phaedrus is not exempt from
an alloy of the silver age; but his manner is concise, terse, and
sententious; the Thracian slave discreetly breathes the spirit of a
freeman; and when the text is found, the style is perspicuous. But his
fables