es of understanding he was
heartily despised as a mere civilized monkey. He performed every thing
by imitation; and he imitated nothing (unless he was forcibly compelled
to it) by which a rational being may be distinguished from a brute
animal. But the species of imitation in which he most delighted, was
that which, in the vulgar style, is called _mocking_; for he was not
possessed of a sufficient stock of ingenuity to be (what he very
frequently attempted to be) a clever mimick. If any of his schoolmates
happened to be afflicted with an impediment in their speech, an
accidental lameness, or the like; he had the mean barbarity to
endeavour to aggravate the misfortune by a coarse imitation, which
generally turned the whole ridicule upon himself. He once had the
impudence to practise his mockery upon a worthy gentlemen in the
neighbourhood, who was so unfortunate as to be unable to speak without
stuttering. The gentleman happening to pass by Mr. _Fribble's_ door, at
which our little monsieur was then standing with a magpie in his hand."
"_Bi-bi-bill_, said the good man (after inquiring very civilly how he
did) has that pretty ma-ma-mag learned to ta-ta-talk?" "Ye-ye-yes,
replied the saucy fop, be-be-better than you do, or else I would wring
his head off." "This rude and impertinent answer, which at first
excited the laughter of some of the by-standers, soon gave them a very
mean opinion of him, and he was afterwards despised by every sensible
person, as a mischievous, unthinking coxcomb. What aggravated his
punishment was, that he had so frequently indulged himself in the
ungenerous and silly practice of mocking the imperfect pronunciation of
others, that at last he himself contracted such a habit of stuttering
as he could never leave off. This gave such a poor recommendation to
the nonsensical things he was continually saying, that he became the
object of ten times the ridicule which he had endeavoured to inflict
upon those who had a _natural_ impediment. What was pitied in them as a
misfortune, was despised in him as an ill-acquired and consequently a
vicious imperfection; and therefore every one was willing to increase
the mortifying smart of it, and keep alive the conscious shame he felt
of wearing a fool's cap which was entirely of his own making. This
vexatious, and in some degree, vindictive ridicule to which he was
daily exposed, and which, in time, he might have softened and disarmed
by an humble and penitent depo