ts.

During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly.
One of our adversaries having heard him preach a sermon that was much
admired, thought he had somewhere read the sermon before, or at least a
part of it. On search he found that part quoted at length, in one of
the British Reviews, from a discourse of Dr. Foster's. This detection
gave many of our party disgust, who accordingly abandoned his cause,
and occasion'd our more speedy discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by
him, however, as I rather approv'd his giving us good sermons compos'd
by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was
the practice of our common teachers. He afterward acknowledg'd to me
that none of those he preach'd were his own; adding, that his memory
was such as enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one
reading only. On our defeat, he left us in search elsewhere of better
fortune, and I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, tho' I
continu'd many years my subscription for the support of its ministers.

I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made myself so much a
master of the French as to be able to read the books with ease. I then
undertook the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also learning it, us'd
often to tempt me to play chess with him. Finding this took up too
much of the time I had to spare for study, I at length refus'd to play
any more, unless on this condition, that the victor in every game
should have a right to impose a task, either in parts of the grammar to
be got by heart, or in translations, etc., which tasks the vanquish'd
was to perform upon honour, before our next meeting. As we play'd
pretty equally, we thus beat one another into that language. I
afterwards with a little painstaking, acquir'd as much of the Spanish
as to read their books also.

I have already mention'd that I had only one year's instruction in a
Latin school, and that when very young, after which I neglected that
language entirely. But, when I had attained an acquaintance with the
French, Italian, and Spanish, I was surpriz'd to find, on looking over
a Latin Testament, that I understood so much more of that language than
I had imagined, which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study
of it, and I met with more success, as those preceding languages had
greatly smooth'd my way.

From these circumstances, I have thought that there is some
inconsistency in our common mode of