CHAPTER II.

His studies-His habits-His style of reading-A present of books-Doctor Richard Walker-Disputation-Ill-health-Advantages of the system of instruction at Cambridge-Collectanea-Plan of reading-Mason's ElfridaPolitics-Change of life-Excursion to York-Elegiac verses-Candidate for a fellowship-Appointed Lord Halifax's private secretary-Sketch of Halifax -Dr. Crane-Cumberland goes to London-John Pownall-Visit to the Duke of Newcastle-Bishop of Peterborough-Charles Mason-Cumberland's examination for a fellowship-His success-His competitors-His course of life in London-Not fitted for public life-Demagogues-Charles TownshendLord and Lady Halifax-Ambrose Isted-Mr. Eskins-Jeffrey-Richard Reynolds-Poem on India-Death of Lady Halifax-Her character-Cumberland's father removes to Fulham-His popularity-Bishop Sherlock-Mrs. Sherlock-Richard Glover-Bubb Dodington-Cumberland's visit to--Character of Henry Fox-Alderman Beckford-Lay-fellowship at Trinity College The banishment of Cicero-Praised by Warburton-Recommended to Garrick by Lord Halifax-Garrick's refusal to put it on the stage-Cumberland's marriage.

IN the last year of my being under graduate, when I commenced Soph, in the very first act that was given out to be kept in the mathematical schools, I was appointed to an opponency, when at that time I had not read a single proposition in Euclid; I had now been just turned over to Mr. Backhouse, the Westminster tutor, who gave regular lectures, and fulfilled the duties. of his charge ably and conscientiously. Totally unprepared to answer the call now made upon me, and acquit myself in the schools, I resorted to him in my distress, and through his interference my name was withdrawn from the act; in the mean time I was sent for by the master, Doctor Smith, the learned author of the well-known Treatises upon Optics and Harmonics, and the worthy successor to my grandfather Bentley, who strongly reprobated the neglect of my former tutors, and recommended me to lose no more time in preparing myself for my degree, but to apply closely to my academical studies for the remainder of the year, which I assured him I would do.

As I did not belong to Mr. Backhouse till I had commenced Soph, but nominally to those who left me to myself, I had hitherto pursued those studies that were familiar to me, and indulged my passion for the classics, with an ardor that rarely knew any intermission or relief. I certainly did not wantonly misuse my

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time, or yield to any even of the slightest excesses, that youth is prone to: I never frequented any tavern, neither gave nor received entertainments, nor partook in any parties of pleasure, except now and then in a ride to the hills, so that I thank God I have not to reproach myself with any instances of misconduct towards a generous father, who at this tender age committed me to my own discretion and confided in me. I look back therefore upon this period of my life with a tranquil conscience; I even dwell upon it with peculiar delight, for within those maternal walls I passed years given up to study and those intellectual pure enjoyments, which leave no self-reproach, whilst with the works of my ancestors in my hands, and the impression of their examples on my heart, I flattered myself in the belief that I was pressing forward ardently and successfully to follow them in their profession, and peradventure not fall far behind them in their fame. This was the great aim and object of my ambition; for this I labored, to this point I looked, and all my world was centred in my college. Every scene brought to my mind the pleasing recollection of times past, and filled it with the animating hope of times to come: as my college duties and attendances were occupations that I took pleasure in, punctuality and obedience did not put me to the trouble of an effort, for when to be employed is our amusement, there is no self-denial in not being idle. If I had then had a tutor, who would have systematized and arranged my studies, it would have been happy for me; but I had no such director, and with my books before me (poets, historians and philosophers), sate down as it were to a cœna dubia, with an eager, rather than a discriminating, appetite; I am now speaking of my course of reading from my admission to my commencing Soph, when I was called off to my academical studies. In that period my stock of books was but slender, till Doctor Richard Bentley had the goodness to give me a valuable parcel of my grandfather's books and papers, containing his correspondence with many of the foreign literati upon points of criticism, some letters from Sir Isaac Newton, a pretty large body of notes for an edition of Lucan's Pharsalia, which I gave to my uncle Bentley, and were published under his inspection. by Dodsley, at Mr. Walpole's press, with sundry other manuscripts, and a considerable number of Greek and Latin books, mostly collated by him, and their margins filled with alterations and corrections in his own hand, neatly and legibly written in a very small character. The possession of these books was most gratifying and acceptable to me; some few of them were extremely rare, and in the history I have given in 'The Observers' of the Greek writers, more particularly of the Comic Poets now

lost, I have availed myself of them, and I am vain enough to believe no such collection of the scattered extracts, anecdotes and remains of those dramatists is anywhere else to be found. The donor of these books was the nephew of my grandfather, and inherited by will the whole of his library, which at his death was sold by auction in Leicestershire, where he resided in his latter years on his rectory of Nailstone: he was himself no inconsiderable collector, and it is much to be regretted that his executors took this method of disposing of his books, by which they became dispersed in small lots amongst many country purchasers, who probably did not know their value. He was an accurate collator, and for his judgment in editions much resorted to by Doctor Mead, with whom he lived in great intimacy. During the time that he resided in college, for he was one of the senior fellows of Trinity, he gave me every possible proof, not only in this instance of his donation, but in many others, of his favor and protection.

At the same time Doctor Richard Walker, the friend of my grandfather, and vice-master of the college, never failed to dis tinguish me by every kindness in his power. He frequently invited me to his rooms, which I had so often visited as a child, and which had the further merit with me as having been the residence of Sir Isaac Newton, every relic of whose studies and experiments were respectfully preserved to the minutest particular, and pointed out to me by the good old vice master with the most circumstantial precision. He had many little anecdotes of my grandfather, which to me at least were interesting, and an old servant Deborah, whom he made a kind of companion, and who was much in request for the many entertaining circumstances she could narrate of Sir Isaac Newton, when she waited upon him as his bedmaker, and also of Doctor Bentley, with whom she lived for several years after Sir Isaac left college, and at the death of my grandfather was passed over to Doctor Walker, in whose service she died.

My mind in these happy days was so tranquil, and my time passed in so uniform a tenor of study and retirement, that though it is a period pleasing to me to reflect upon, yet it furnishes little that is worthy to be recorded. I believe I hardly ever employed myself upon English composition, except on the event of the Prince of Wales's death, when amongst others I sent in my contribution of elegiac verses to the university volume, and very indifferent ones they were. To my Latin declamations I paid my best attention, for these were recited publicly in the chapel after evening prayers on Saturdays, when it was open to all

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who chose to resort thither, and we were generally flattered by pretty full audiences.

The year of trial now commenced, for which, through the neglect of my tutors, I was, as an academical student, totally unprepared. Determined to use every effort in my power for redeeming my lost time, I began a course of study so apportioned as to allow myself but six hours sleep, to which I strictly adhered, living almost entirely upon milk, and using the cold bath very frequently. As I was then only seventeen years old, and of a frame by no means robust, many of my friends remonstrated against the severity of this regimen, and recommended more moderation, but the encouragement I met in the rapidity of my progress through all the dry and elementary parts of my studies, determined me to persist with ardor, and made me deaf to their advice. In the several branches of the mechanics, hydrostatics, optics and astronomy, I consulted the best treatises, and made myself master of them; I worked all propositions, formed all my minutes, and even my thoughts, in Latin, whereby I acquired a facility of expounding, solving and arguing in that language, in which I may presume to say I had advantages, which some of the best of my contemporaries in our public disputations were but too sensible of, for so long as my knowledge of a question could supply matter for argument, I never felt any want of terms for explanation.

When I found myself prepared to take my part in the public schools, I thirsted for the opportunity, which I no longer dreaded, and with this my ambition was soon gratified, being appointed to keep an act, and three respectable opponents singled out against me, the first of which was looked up to as the best of the year. When his name was given out for disputation, the schools never failed to be crowded, and as I had drawn my questions from Newton's Principia, I gave him fair scope for the display of his superiority, and was by all considered (for his fame was universal) as a mere child in his hands, justly to be punished for my temerity, and self-devoted to complete confutation. I was not only a mere novice in the schools, but also a perfect stranger to the gentleman opposed to me; when, therefore, mounted on a bass in the rostrum, which even then I could scarcely overtop, I contemplated, in the person of my antago nist, a North-country black-bearded philosopher, who at an advanced age had admitted at Saint John's to qualify for holy orders (even at that time a finished mathematician and a private lecturer in those studies), I did not wonder that the contrast of a beardless boy, pale and emaciated as I was then become, seemed to attract everybody's curiosity; for after I had

concluded my thesis, which precedes the disputation, when he ascended his seat under the rostrum of the Moderator

Formidable as he appeared, I did not feel my spirits sink, for I had taken a very careful survey of the ground I was upon, and thought myself prepared against any attack he could devise against me. I also saw that all advantages, resulting from the unequal terms on which we engaged, were on my side; I might obtain glory from him, and he could but little profit by his triumph over me. My heart was in my cause, and proudly measuring its importance by the crowd it had collected, armed, as I believed myself to be, in the full understanding of my questions, and a perfect readiness in the language in which our disputations were to be carried on, I waited his attack amidst the hum and murmur of the assembly. His argument was purely mathematical, and so enveloped in the terms of his art, as made it somewhat difficult for me to discover where his syllogism pointed without those aids and delineations, which our process did not allow of; I availed myself of my privilege to call for a repetition of it, when at once I caught the fallacy, and pursued it with advantage, keeping the clue firin in hand till I completely traced him through all the windings of his labyrinth. The same success attended me through the remaining seven arguments, which fell off in strength and subtlety, and his defence became sullen and morose, his latinity very harsh, inelegant and embarrassed, till I saw him descend with no very pleasant countenance, whilst it appeared evident to me that my whole audience were not displeased with the unexpected turn which our controversy had taken. He ought in course to have been succeeded by a second and third opponent, but our dispu tation had already been prolonged beyond the time commonly allotted, and the schools were broken up by the Moderator with a compliment addressed to me in terms much out of the usual course on such occasions.

If it is allowable for me to speak of such trifling events circumstantially, and with the importance which at that time I attached to them, when I knew nothing of this great world beyond the walls of my college, I hope this passage will be read with candor, and that I shall be pardoned for a long tale told in my old age of the first triumph of my youth, earned by

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