have got by your verses, had they been your own.' I must be allowed to add, in palliation of this disreputable anecdote, that I had the grace to make the voluntary atonement next morning of an exercise as tolerable as my utmost pains and capacity could render it. I gave it in uncalled for; it was graciously received, and I took occasion to apprise the seniors in the seventh, that I had repented of my attempt.

About this time the victory of Culloden having given the death's-blow to the rebel cause, the Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino were beheaded upon Tower Hill. The elegant person of the former, and the intrepid deportment of the latter, when suffering on the scaffold, drew pity even from the most obdurate, and I believe it was at that time very generally lamented, that mercy, the best attribute of kings, was not, or could not be extended to embrace their melancholy case; every heart that felt compassion for their fate could find a plea for their offence; amongst us at school we had a great majority on the side of mercy, and not a few who, in the spirit of those times, divided in opinion with their party. In the mean while it seemed a point of honor with the boys neither to inflame nor insult each other's feelings on this occasion, and I must consider the decorum observed by such young partisans on such an occasion as a circumstance very highly to their credit. I don't doubt but respect and delicacy towards our kind and well-beloved master had a leading share in disposing them to that orderly and humane behavior.

When the rebels were in march and had advanced to Derby, appearances were very gloomy; there was a language held by some, who threw off all reserve, that menaced danger, and intimidated many of the best affected. In the height of this alarm, the Honorable Mrs. Wentworth, grandmother of the late Marquis of Rockingham, fearing that the distinguished loyalty of her noble house might expose her to pillage, secured her papers and buried her plate, flying to my father's house for refuge, where she remained an inmate during the immediate pressure of the danger she apprehended. Here I found her at my breaking up from school, a fugitive from her mansion at Harrowden, and residing in the parsonage house at Stanwick. She was a venerable and excellent lady, and retained her friendship for

Selwyn, it is well known, had a morbid curiosity to witness criminal executions. He was present at the trials of Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino-observing a Mrs. Bethel (a daughter of Lord Sandys, who was distinguished by what has been happily styled a hatchet face), looking wistfully at the rebel lords, 'What a shame it is,' he said, 'to turn her face to the prisoners till they are condemned.'-Selwyn and his Contemporaries, vol. i. p. 11.

MARTIAL ARDOR OF MY FATHER.

45

my family to her death: she gave me a copy of the great Earl of Strafford's Letters in two folio volumes magnificently bound.

This was the time for my good father, who I verily think never knew fear, to stand forward in the exertion of that popularity, which was almost without example. He had been conspicuously active in assembling the people of the neighboring parishes, where his influence lay, and persuading them to enroll and turn out in the defence of their country. This he did in the very crisis of general despondency and alarm, whilst the disaffected in a near-neighboring quarter, abetted by a noble family, which I need not name, in the height of their exultation were burning him in effigy, as a person most obnoxious to their principles and most hostile to their cause. In a short time, at the expense merely of the enlisting shilling per man, he raised two full companies of one hundred each for the regiment then enrolling under the command of the Earl of Halifax, and marched them in person to Northampton, attended by four picked men on his four coach horses, where he was received on his entrance into the town with shouts and acclamations expressive of applause so fairly merited. The Earl of Halifax, then high in character and graceful in his person, received this tribute of my father's loyalty as might naturally be expected, and as a mark of his consideration insisted upon bestowing one of these companies upon me, for which I had the commission, though I was then too young to take command. An officer was named with the approbation of my father, to act in my place, and the regiment set out on their route for Carlisle, then in the hands of the Highlanders. There many of them lost their lives in the siege, and the smallpox made such cruel havoc amongst our young peasantry, that, although they had in the first instance been cheaply raised, the distresses of their families brought a very considerable and lasting charge upon the bounty of my father.

I remained at Westminster School, as well as I can recollect, half a year in the Shell, and one year in the sixth form, and I cannot reflect upon this period of my education without ac knowledging the reason I have to be contented with the time so passed. I did not indeed drink long and deeply at the Helicon of that distinguished seminary, but I had a taste of the spring and felt the influence of the waters. In point of composition I particularly profited, for which I conceive there is in that school a kind of taste and character, peculiar to itself, and handed down perhaps from times long past, which seems to mark it out for a distinction, that it may indisputably claim, that of having been above all others the most favored cradle of the Muses. If any

are disposed to question this assertion, let them turn to the lives and histories of the poets and satisfy their doubts. I know there is a tide, that flows from the very fountain-head of power, that has long run strongly in another channel, but the vicinity of Windsor Castle is of no benefit to the discipline and good order of Eton School. A wise father will no more estimate his son's improvement by the measure of his boarding-house bills and pocket money amount, than a good soldier will fix his preference on a corps, because it happens to figure in the most splendid uniform, and indulge in the most voluptuous and extravagant

mess.

When I returned to school I was taken as a boarder into the family of Edmund Ashby, Esq., elder brother of Waring, who had been married to my father's sister. This gentleman had a wife and three daughters, and occupied a spacious house in Peter Street, two doors from the turning out of College Street. Having been set aside by the will of his father, he was in narrow circumstances, and his style of living was that of economy upon the strictest scale. No visitor ever entered his doors, nor did he ever go out of them in search of amusement or society. Temperate in the extreme, placid and unruffled, he simply vegetated without occupation, did nothing, and had nothing to do, never seemed to trouble himself with much thinking, or interrupt the thoughts of others with much talking, and I don't recollect ever to have found him engaged with a newspaper, or a book, so that had it not been for the favors I received from a few Canary birds which the ladies kept, I might as well have boarded in the convent of La Trappe. I confess my spirit felt the gloomy influence of the sphere I lived in, and my nights were particularly long and heavy, annoyed as they were by the

George III. was very partial to Eton School. Dr. Quincey thus relates the incident of his suddenly meeting the king in one of the walks at Frogmore, while, together with his young friend, Lord W, he was 'practically commenting on the art of throwing stones.' 'The king,' says he, having first spoken with great kindness to my companion, inquiring circumstantially about his mother and grandmother, as persons particularly well known to himself, then turned his eye upon me. What passed was pretty nearly as follows: My name, it seems, from what followed, had been communicated to him as we were advancing; he did not, therefore, inquire about that. Was I of Eton? was his first question. I replied that I was not, but I hoped I should be. Had I a father living? I had not; my father had been dead about eight years. 'But you have a mother?' I had. 'And she thinks of sending you to Eton?' I answered that she had expressed such an intention in my hearing; but I was not sure whether that might not be in order to waive an argument with the person to whom she spoke, who happened to have been an Etonian. 'Oh, but all people think highly of Eton; everybody praises Eton; your mother does right to inquire; there can be no harm in that; but the more she inquires the more she will be satisfied; that I can answer for.'—Life and Manners.

RECOLLECTIONS OF GARRICK.

47

yells and howlings of the crews of the depredators, which infest that infamous quarter, and sometimes even roused and alarmed us by their pilfering attacks. In some respects, however, I was benefited by my removal from Ludfords, as I was no longer under the strict confinement of a boarding-house, but was once or twice allowed to go, under proper convoy, to the play, where for the first time in my life I was treated with the sight of Garrick in the character of Lothario; Quin played Horatio, Ryan Altamont, Mrs. Cibber Calista, and Mrs. Pritchard condescended to the humble part of Lavinia. I enjoyed a good view of the stage from the front row of the gallery, and my attention was riveted to the scene. I have the spectacle even now as it were before my eyes. Quin presented himself upon the rising of the curtain in a green velvet coat embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled square-toed shoes; with very little variation of cadence, and in a deep full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the senate than of the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the plaudits that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key high-pitched, but sweet withal, sung or rather recited Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the Improvisatores; it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that, though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it; when she had once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the manner of every succeeding one; it was like a long old legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of which is sung to the same tune, eternally chiming in the ear without variation. or relief. Mrs. Pritchard. was an actress of a different cast, had more nature, and of course more change of tone, and variety both of action and expression: in my opinion the comparison was decidedly in her favor; but when, after long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont and heavy-paced Horatio-heavens, what a transition !-it seemed as if a whole century had been stepped over in the transition of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too long attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. This heaven-born actor was then struggling to emancipate his audience from the slavery they were resigned to, and though at times he succeeded in throwing in some gleams of new-born light upon them, yet in general they

seemed to love darkness better than light, and in the dialogue of altercation between Horatio and Lothario, bestowed far the greater show of hands upon the master of the old school than upon the founder of the new. I thank my stars, my feelings in those moments led me right; they were those of nature, and therefore could not err.'

At the house of Mr. Ashby I had a room to myself, a solitude within it, and silence without; I had no plea for neglecting my studies, for I had no avocations to draw me off, and no amusements to resort to. I pursued my private studies without intermission, and having taken up the Georgics for recreation's sake, I began to entertain myself with a translation in blank verse of Virgil's beautiful description of the plague amongst the cattle, beginning at verse 478 of the third book, and continued to the end of the same, viz:

Hic quondam morbo cœli miseranda coorta est
Tempestas, &c. &c.

As this is one of the very few samples of my 'Juvenilia,' which I have thought well enough of to preserve, I shall now insert it verbatim from my first copy, and, without repeating former

1 Garrick's appearance on the boards of a theatre in Goodman's Fields, the 19th of October, 1741, marked a change in the style of dramatic representations in England. He abandoned the artificial declamation of the prevailing school, and adhered to nature and truth. The effect was wonderful. 'All the town,' wrote Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, May 26, 1742, 'is now after Garrick, a wine merchant, who is turned player at Goodman's Fields. He plays all parts, and is a very good mimic. His acting I have seen, and may say to you, who will not tell it again here, I see nothing wonderful in it; but it is heresy to say so. The Duke of Argyle says he is superior to Betterton.' 'Garrick,' said Sir Joshua Reynolds, and surely he is a more reliable judge than Walpole, 'produces more amusement than anybody.' 'No wonder, sir, that he is vain,' said Johnson, 'a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder.' Boswell. And such bellows, too. Lord Mansfield, with his cheeks like to burst; Lord Chatham, like an Eolus. I have read such notes from them to him, as were enough to turn his head.' Johnson.- True. When he whom everybody else flatters, flatters me, I then am truly happy.'

'If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see

That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.'

Boswell's Johnson, vol. ii. pp. 233, 241.

'Garrick,' said Johnson, on another occasion, 'was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gives away freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family whose study was to make fourpence do as much as others made fourpence-halfpenny do. But, when he had got money, he was very liberal.'-Ibid., vol. iii. p. 417.