ple
encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not to
compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot
dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of C.--when he
heard that his old master was on his death-bed--"Poor J.B.!--may all
his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub
boys, all head and wings, with no _bottoms_ to reproach his sublunary
infirmities."
Under him were many good and sound scholars bred.--First Grecian of
my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, since
Co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T----e. What
an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who
remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors!--You never met
the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly
dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other.
Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each
other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced
age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not long in
discovering that it suited him to lay down the fasces also. Oh, it
is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same arm linked in yours
at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the _Cicero De
Amicitia_, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart
even then was burning to anticipate!--Co-Grecian with S. was Th----,
who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at
the Northern courts. Th---- was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing
of speech, with raven locks.--Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him
(now Bishop of Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He
has the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides
the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article, against
Sharpe.--M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where the _regni
novitas_ (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility
quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly
fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a
reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers
watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild, and
unassuming.--Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Richards, author of
the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems; a
pale, studious Grecian.--Then followed poor S----, ill-fated M
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