I can scarcely contemplate without envy. I was bred under a
man of learning in the country, who inculcated nothing but the dignity
of knowledge, and the happiness of virtue. By frequency of admonition,
and confidence of assertion, he prevailed upon me to believe, that the
splendour of literature would always attract reverence, if not darkened
by corruption. I therefore pursued my studies with incessant industry,
and avoided every thing which I had been taught to consider either as
vicious or tending to vice, because I regarded guilt and reproach as
inseparably united, and thought a tainted reputation the greatest
calamity.

At the university, I found no reason for changing my opinion; for though
many among my fellow-students took the opportunity of a more remiss
discipline to gratify their passions; yet virtue preserved her natural
superiority, and those who ventured to neglect, were not suffered to
insult her. The ambition of petty accomplishments found its way into the
receptacles of learning, but was observed to seize commonly on those who
either neglected the sciences or could not attain them; and I was
therefore confirmed in the doctrines of my old master, and thought
nothing worthy of my care but the means of gaining or imparting
knowledge.

This purity of manners, and intenseness of application, soon extended my
renown, and I was applauded by those, whose opinion I then thought
unlikely to deceive me, as a young man that gave uncommon hopes of
future eminence. My performances in time reached my native province, and
my relations congratulated themselves upon the new honours that were
added to their family.

I returned home covered with academical laurels, and fraught with
criticism and philosophy. The wit and the scholar excited curiosity, and
my acquaintance was solicited by innumerable invitations. To please will
always be the wish of benevolence, to be admired must be the constant
aim of ambition; and I therefore considered myself as about to receive
the reward of my honest labours, and to find the efficacy of learning
and of virtue.

The third day after my arrival I dined at the house of a gentleman who
had summoned a multitude of his friends to the annual celebration of his
wedding-day. I set forward with great exultation, and thought myself
happy that I had an opportunity of displaying my knowledge to so
numerous an assembly. I felt no sense of my own insufficiency, till,
going up stairs to the dining-