though he had a leaning to the
servile, and, perhaps, to the sons of rich people; and he would
persecute others in a manner truly frightful. I have seen him beat a
sickly-looking, melancholy boy (C----n) about the head and ears, till
the poor fellow, hot, dry-eyed, and confused, seemed lost in
bewilderment. C----n, not long after he took orders, died out of his
senses. I do not attribute that catastrophe to the master; and of course
he could not wish to do him any lasting mischief. He had no imagination
of any sort. But there is no saying how far his treatment of the boy
might have contributed to prevent a cure. Tyrannical schoolmasters
nowadays are to be found, perhaps, exclusively in such inferior schools
as those described with such masterly and indignant edification by my
friend Charles Dickens; but they formerly seemed to have abounded in
all; and masters, as well as boys, have escaped the chance of many
bitter reflections, since a wiser and more generous intercourse has come
up between them.

I have some stories of Boyer, that will completely show his character,
and at the same time relieve the reader's indignation by something
ludicrous in their excess. We had a few boarders at the school; boys,
whose parents were too rich to let them go on the foundation. Among
them, in my time, was Carlton, a son of Lord Dorchester; Macdonald, one
of the Lord Chief Baron's sons; and R----, the son of a rich merchant.
Carlton, who was a fine fellow, manly, and fall of good sense, took his
new master and his caresses very coolly, and did not want them. Little
Macdonald also could dispense with them, and would put on his delicate
gloves after lesson, with an air as if he resumed his patrician plumage.
R---- was meeker, and willing to be encouraged; and there would the
master sit, with his arm round his tall waist, helping him to his Greek
verbs, as a nurse does bread and milk to an infant; and repeating them,
when he missed, with a fond patience, that astonished us criminals in
drugget.

Very different was the treatment of a boy on the foundation, whose
friends, by some means or other, had prevailed on the master to pay him
an extra attention, and try to get him on. He had come into the school
at an age later than usual, and could hardly read. There was a book used
by the learners in reading, called "Dialogues between a Missionary and
an Indian." It was a poor performance, full of inconclusive arguments
and other commonplaces. T