qualified to
judge. According to his specious, though narrow plan, I settled my hero
about the time of Solomon, in the tenth century before the Christian
era. It was therefore incumbent on me, unless I would adopt Sir Isaac
Newton's shorter chronology, to remove a formidable objection; and my
solution, for a youth of fifteen, is not devoid of ingenuity. In
his version of the Sacred Books, Manetho, high priest has identified
Sethosis, or Sesostris, with the elder brother of Danaus, who landed in
Greece, according to the Parian Marble, fifteen hundred and ten years
before Christ. But in my supposition the high priest is guilty of a
voluntary error; flattery is the prolific parent of falsehood. Manetho's
History of Egypt is dedicated to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who derived a
fabulous or illegitimate pedigree from the Macedonian kings of the race
of Hercules. Danaus is the ancestor of Hercules; and after the failure
of the elder branch, his descendants, the Ptolemies, are the sole
representatives of the royal family, and may claim by inheritance the
kingdom which they hold by conquest. Such were my juvenile discoveries;
at a riper age I no longer presume to connect the Greek, the Jewish, and
the Egyptian antiquities, which are lost in a distant cloud. Nor is this
the only instance, in which the belief and knowledge of the child are
superseded by the more rational ignorance of the man. During my stay
at Beriton, my infant-labour was diligently prosecuted, without much
interruption from company or country diversions; and I already heard the
music of public applause. The discovery of my own weakness was the
first symptom of taste. On my return to Oxford, the Age of Sesostris was
wisely relinquished; but the imperfect sheets remained twenty years at
the bottom of a drawer, till, in a general clearance of papers (Nov.,
1772,) they were committed to the flames.

After the departure of Dr. Waldegrave, I was transferred, with his other
pupils, to his academical heir, whose literary character did not command
the respect of the college. Dr--- well remembered that he had a salary
to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to perform. Instead of
guiding the studies, and watching over the behaviour of his disciple,
I was never summoned to attend even the ceremony of a lecture; and,
excepting one voluntary visit to his rooms, during the eight months of
his titular office, the tutor and pupil lived in the same college as
strangers to eac