an perfectly faultless at a
tea-table, wore a curl on his fair forehead, and tied his neck-cloth
with a melancholy grace. He was a decent scholar and mathematician, and
taught Pen as much as the lad was ever disposed to learn, which was not
much. For Pen had soon taken the measure of his tutor, who, when he came
riding into the court-yard at Fairoaks on his pony, turned out his toes
so absurdly, and left such a gap between his knees and the saddle, that
it was impossible for any lad endowed with a sense of humour to respect
such an equestrian. He nearly killed Smirke with terror by putting
him on his mare, and taking him a ride over a common, where the county
fox-hounds (then bunted by that staunch old sportsman, Mr. Hardhead, of
Dumplingbeare) happened to meet. Mr. Smirke, on Pen's mare, Rebecca (she
was named after Pen's favourite heroine, the daughter of Isaac of York),
astounded the hounds as much as he disgusted the huntsman, laming one
of the former by persisting in riding amongst the pack, and receiving a
speech from the latter, more remarkable for energy of language, than
any oration he had ever heard since he left the bargemen on the banks of
Isis.

Smirke confided to his pupil his poems both Latin and English; and
presented to Mrs. Pendennis a volume of the latter, printed at Clapham,
his native place. The two read the ancient poets together, and rattled
through them at a pleasant rate, very different from that steady
grubbing pace with which the Cistercians used to go over the classic
ground, scenting out each word as they went, and digging up every root
in the way. Pen never liked to halt, but made his tutor construe when he
was at fault, and thus galloped through the Iliad and the Odyssey, the
tragic playwriters, writers, and the charming wicked Aristophanes (whom
he vowed to be the greatest poet of all). But he went at such a pace
that, though he certainly galloped through a considerable extent of the
ancient country, he clean forgot it in after-life, and had only such a
vague remembrance of his early classic course as a man has in the House
of Commons, let us say, who still keeps up two or three quotations; or
a reviewer who, just for decency's sake, hints at a little Greek. Our
people are the most prosaic in the world, but the most faithful; and
with curious reverence we keep up and transmit, from generation
to generation, the superstition of what we call the education of a
gentleman.

Besides the anci