a divine _afflatus_ which
drove him in that direction; and such was his capacity for riding in
whirlwinds and directing storms, that he made it his trade to create
them, as [Greek: nephelegerheta Zehys] a cloud-compelling Jove, in order
that he _might_ direct them. For this, and other reasons, he had been
sent to the grammar school of Louth, in Lincolnshire--one of those many
old classic institutions which form the peculiar[11] glory of England.
To box, and to box under the severest restraint of honorable laws, was
in those days a mere necessity of school-boy life at _public_ schools;
and hence the superior manliness, generosity, and self-control, of those
generally who benefited by such discipline--so systematically hostile to
all meanness, pusillanimity, or indirectness. Cowper, in his poem on
that subject, is far from doing justice to our great public schools.
Himself disqualified, by delicacy of temperament, for reaping the
benefits from such a warfare, and having suffered too much in his own
Westminster experience, he could not judge them from an impartial
station; but I, though ill enough adapted to an atmosphere so stormy,
yet, having tried both classes of schools, public and private, am
compelled in mere conscience to give my vote (and, if I had a thousand
votes, to give _all_ my votes) for the former.

Fresh from such a training as this, and at a time when his additional
five or six years availed nearly to make _his_ age the double of mine,
my brother very naturally despised me; and, from his exceeding
frankness, he took no pains to conceal that he did. Why should he? Who
was it that could have a right to feel aggrieved by his contempt? Who,
if not myself? But it happened, on the contrary, that I had a perfect
craze for being despised. I doated on being despised; and considered
contempt the sincerest a sort of luxury, that I was in continual fear of
losing. I lived in a panic, lest I should be suspected of shamming
contemptibility. But I did _not_ sham it. I trusted that I was really
entitled to contempt; and, for this, I had some metaphysical-looking
reasons, which there may be occasion to explain further on. At present,
it is sufficient to give a colorable rationality to my craze, if I say,
that the slightest approach to any favorable construction of my
intellectual pretensions, any, the least, shadow of esteem expressed for
some thought or some logical distinction that I might incautiously have
dropped, alar