pen, ink, and paper, that he might write to his mistress. An act and a half of this nonsense exhausted my perseverance. Another story ran for a long time in my head, and I had planned the characters to suit the actors on the Bath stage. The fable was taken from a collection of tales, every circumstance of which has completely faded from my recollection, except that the scene of the story in question was laid in Italy, and the time, I think, about Justinian's reign. The book must have been at least thirty or forty years old then, and I should recognise it if it ever fell in my way. While this dramatic passion continued, I wished my friends to partake it; and soon after I went to Williams's school, persuaded one of my school-fellows to write a tragedy. Ballard was his name, the son of a surgeon at Portbury, a goodnatured good fellow, with a round face which I have not seen for seven or eight-and-thirty years, and yet fancy that I could recognise it now, and should be right glad to see it. He liked the suggestion, and agreed to it very readily, but he could not tell what to write about. I gave him a story. But then another difficulty was discovered; he could not devise names for the personages of the drama.

I

gave him a most heroic assortment of propria quæ maribus et fœminis. He had now got his Dramatis Persona, but he could not tell what to make them say, and then I gave up the business. I made the same attempt with another schoolfellow, and with no better success. It seemed to me very odd, that they should not be able to write plays as well as to do their lessons. It is needless to say that both

these friends were of my own age; this is always the condition of school intimacies. The subject of the second experiment was a boy whose appearance prepossessed everybody. My mother was so taken with the gentleness of his manners, and the regularity and mildness of his features, that she was very desirous I should become intimate with him. He grew up to be a puppy, sported a tail when he was fifteen, and at fiveand-twenty was an insignificant withered homunculus, with a white face shrivelled into an expression of effeminate peevishness. I have seen many instances wherein the promise of the boy has not been fulfilled by the man, but never so striking a case of blight as this.

The school was better than Flower's, inasmuch as I had a Latin lesson every day, instead of thrice a week. But my lessons were solitary ones, so few boys were there in my station, and indeed in the station of life next above mine, who received a classical education in those days, compared with what is the case now. Writing and arithmetic, with at most a little French, were thought sufficient, at that time, for the sons of opulent Bristol merchants. I was in Phædrus when I went there; and proceded through Cornelius Nepos, Justin, and the Metamorphoses. One lesson in the morning was all. The rest of the time was given to what was deemed there of more importance. Writing was taught very differently at this school from what it was at Corston, and much less agreeably to my inclinations. We did copies of capital letters there, and were encouraged to aspire at the ornamental parts of penmanship. But Williams who wrote a slow strong hand himself, admirable of its kind, put

me back to the rudiments at once, and kept me at strokes, pothooks and hangers, us, ns, and ms, and such words as pupil and tulip, Heaven knows how long, with absurd and wearisome perseverance. Writing was the only thing in which any pains were ever taken, or any method observed, to ground me thoroughly, and I was universally pronounced a most unpromising pupil. No instruction ever could teach me to hold the pen properly; of course, therefore, I could make none of those full free strokes which were deemed essential to good writing, and this drew upon me a great deal of unavailing reproof, though not severity, for old Williams liked me on the whole; and Mr. Foote was the only preceptor (except a dancing-master), who ever laid hands on me in anger. At home, too, my father and my uncle Thomas used to shake their heads at me, and pronounce that I should never write a decent hand. My cypheringbook, however, made some amends, in my master's eyes. It was in this that his pains and the proficiency of his scholars were to be shewn. The books he used to sew himself, half a dozen sheets folded into the common quarto size; they were ruled with double red lines, and the lines which were required in the sums were also doubled ruled with red ink. When the book was filled, the pencil lines were carefully rubbed out; and Williams, tearing off the covers, deposited it in an envelope of fine cartridge paper, on which he had written, in his best hand, the boy's name to whom it belonged. When there were enough of these to form a volume, they were consigned to a poor old man, the inhabitant of an almshouse, who obtained a few com

forts beyond what the establishment allowed him, by binding them. Now, though I wrote what is called a stiff cramp hand, there was a neatness and regularity about my books, which were peculiar to them. I had as quick a sense of symmetry as of metre. My lines were always drawn according to some standard of proportion, so that the page had an appearance of order, at first sight. I found the advantage of this when I came to be concerned with proof sheets. The method which I used in my cyphering-book, led me to teach the printers how to print verses of irregular length upon a regular principle: and Ballantyne told me I was the only person he ever met with, who knew how a page would look before it was set up. I may add that it was I who set the fashion for black letter in titlepages and half titles, and that this arose from my admiration of German-text at school.

I remained at this school between four and five years, which, if not profitably, were at least not unhappily spent. And here let me state the deliberate opinion upon the contested subject of public or private education, which I have formed from what I have experienced and heard and observed. A juster estimate of one's self is acquired at school than can be formed in the course of domestic instruction, and what is of much more consequence, a better intuition into the characters of others than there is any chance of learning in after life. I have said that this is of more consequence than one's selfestimate; because the error upon that score which domestic education tends to produce, is on the right

side

that of diffidence and humility.

These advantages a day-scholar obtains, and he avoids great part of the evils which are to be set against them. He cannot, indeed, wholly escape pollution; but he is far less exposed to it than if he were a boarder. He suffers nothing from tyranny, which is carried to excess in schools; nor has he much opportunity of acquiring or indulging malicious and tyrannical propensities himself. Above all, his religious habits, which it is almost impossible to retain at school, are safe. I would gladly send a son to a good school by day; but rather than board him at the best, I would, at whatever inconvenience, educate him myself. What I have said applies to public schools as well as private; of the advantages which the former possess I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

LETTER XI.

MRS. DOLIGNON. EARLY LOVE FOR BOOKS.-MISS TYLER TAKES IN BRISTOL. FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS

A HOUSE

UNCLE WILLIAM-HIS DEATH.

OF HIS

January 19th, 1823.

My home, for the first two years while I went to Williams's school, was at my father's, except that during the holydays I was with Miss Tyler, either when she had lodgings at Bath, or was visiting Miss Palmer there. The first summer holydays I passed with her at Weymouth, whither she was invited to join her friend Mrs. Dolignon.