Fierce Volscens foams with rage, and gazing round This most intolerable outrage, from its succeeding beyond expectation, and being entirely to the taste of the school, had a run of several days; and was only then put a stop to by the interference of the faculty, who decreed the most exemplary punishment on those who should be found offending in the premises, and by taking measures to prevent a further repetition of the enormity. I have said, and with truth, that I was no promoter of mischief; but I will not take upon me to assert, that I was proof against the irresistible contagion of such a scene, or that I did not raise my voice in the discordant concert of the screamers: though I can safely declare, that I never threw at the master, and that I was wholly ignorant of the contrivers and ringleaders of this shameful proceeding. In the year 1765, Mr. Beveridge published by subscription a small collection of Latin poems. Of their general merit I presume not to judge, but I think I have heard they were not much commended by the British reviewers. The Latinity probably is pure, the prosody correct, the versification sufficiently easy and sounding, and such as might serve to evince an intimate acquaintance with the classics of antient Rome: But I should doubt their possessing much of the soul of poetry. One of them is neither more nor less than a humble petition in hexamaters, and certainly a very curious specimen of pedantic mendicity. It is addressed to Thomas Penn, the proprietary of Pennsylvania; and the poet very modestly proposes, that he should bestow upon him a few of his acres, innumerable, he observes, as the sands of the Delaware; in return for which, his verse shall do its best to confer immortal fame upon the donor. By way of further inducement to the gift, he sets before his excellency the usual ingratitude of an enriched and unknown posterity, on the one hand; and on the other, the advantages which Ajax, Æneas and Mæcenas derived from the muses of Homer, of Virgil and Horace. But lest I might be suspected of misrepresentation, let my good, quondam preceptor speak for himself. Jugera quum tibi sint quot habet DELAVARUS arenas, Quid magnum minimo tribuas si propria parvæ Sin renuas, tanti nec sint commercia nostra, Nec periisse puta, dederis quod vivus amico; Quid juvat ignotis, ingratis forsitan, auri Pondera, frugiferis vel millia jugera campis Linquere post natis? Nequeunt nam prodere famam Divitiæ, nequeunt titulis monumenta superbis. Quid foret Æneas, et magni nominis Ajax, Atque alii quorum sunt nomina multa virorum ; Ni foret et vates divini carminis auctor Mæonides, sacro qui primus vertice Pindi Deduxit faciles Phoebo plaudente, Camœnas? Vel quid Mæcenas animi mentisque benigna Ni benefacta sui celebrasset carmen Horati, Et Maro munificum cecinisset gratus amicum? &c. &c, Might not one here be tempted to exclaim in the spirit of Prior to Boileau! Pindar, that eagle mounts the skies, I never heard, however, that the poet was the better for his application: I rather think that the proprietor was of opinion, there was a want of reciprocity in the proposal, and that, whatever the carmen Horati vel Maronis might have been worth, that of Mr. Beveridge did not amount to a very valuable consideration. Another of the principal poems in this collection is a pastoral, which, if Mr. Beveridge had had the salutary fear of Boileau before his eyes, he certainly would not have written; since, never was production more completely under the lash of the following satirical lines. Viendrai-je, en une Eglogue entouré de troupeaux The complainant in this pastoral is an Edinburg cit, whom he appropriately calls Urbanus: nevertheless he is, without the smallest difficulty, transformed into a shepherd, surrounded with sheep, and proclaiming to the echoes his sottises champetres, in strains like these. Audiit et planctus gemebunda remurmurat Echo. Me miserum ingeminat gelidis e vallibus: Eheu, Clamanti exclamat, repetitis vocibus, Eheu! But after all, it is perhaps too much to expect from a modern, good Latin, good poetry, and good sense, all at the same time. As it frequently happens in human affairs, that men are misplaced, and that those found in a subordinate station are better fitted for the supreme authority than those who are invested with it, so it generally was in the Latin school of the academy. The ushers, during the term of my pupilage, a period of four years or more, were often changed; and some of them, it must be admitted, were insignificant enough but others, were men of sense and respectability, to whom, on a comparison with the principal, the management of the school might have been committed with much advantage. Among these was Mr. Patrick Allison, afterwards officiating as a Presbyterian clergyman in Baltimore; Mr. James Wilson, late one of the associate justices of the supreme court of the United States; and Mr. John Andrews, now doctor Andrews of the university of Pennsylvania. It is true they were much younger men than Mr. Beveridge, and probably unequal adepts in the language that was taught; but even on the supposition of this comparative deficiency on their part, it would have been amply compensated on the score of judicious discipline and instruction. With respect to my progress and that of the class to which I belonged, it was reputable and perhaps laudable for the first two years. From a pretty close application, we were well grounded in grammar, and had passed through the elementary books, much to the approbation of our teachers; but at length, with a single exception, we became possess→ ed of the demons of liberty and idleness. We were, to a great degree, impatient of the restraints of a school; and if we yet retained any latent sparks of the emulation of improvement, we were, unfortunately, never favored with the collision that could draw them forth. We could feelingly have exclaimed with Louis the fourteenth, mais a quoi sert de lire! but where's the use of all this pouring over books! One boy thought he had Latin enough, as he was not designed for a learned profession; his father thought so too, and was about taking him from school. Another was of opinion that he might be much better employed in a counting-house, and was also about ridding himself of his scholastic shackles. As this was a consummation devoutly wished by us all, we cheerfully renounced the learned professions for the sake of the supposed liberty that would be the consequence. We were all, therefore, to be merchants, as to be mechanics was too humiliating; and accordingly, when the question was proposed, which of us would enter upon the study of Greek, the mommar of which tenone was about to be nut into our hands, there were but two or three who declared for it. As to myself, it was my mother's desire, from her knowing it to have been my father's intention to give me the best education the country afforded, that I should go on, and acquire every language and science that was taught in the institution; but, as my evil star would have it, I was thoroughly tired of books and confinement, and her advice and even entreaties were overruled by my extreme repugnance to a longer continuance in the college, which, to my lasting regret, I bid adieu to when a little turned of fourteen, at the very season when the minds of the studious begin to profit by instruction. We were at this time reading Horace and Cicero, having passed through Ovid, Virgil, Cæsar and Sallust. From my own experience on this occasion, I am inclined to think it of much consequence, that a boy designed to complete his college studies, should be classed with those of a similar destination. |