They who are so disposed may there, if they please, enter into a critical examination and comparison of the Latinity of these two distinguished personages. We have something else to do. It is not pretended to say that the author of this last oration was defective in good taste with respect to literary composition, but it is rather extraordinary that so protracted a course of scholastic discipline did not create more. One thing is alike remarkable and certain, and was notorious to the pupils in almost every division of their classes, that their master had no great talent for versification. They who have seen the Masters of Westminster, of Eton, or Harrow, correct verse exercises, must be well aware of the extreme readiness, facility, and precision, with which a false quantity is detected, an unpoetical word erased, a better substituted, and every part of the rhythm accurately determined. Whereas the learned man of whom we are speaking, made few or no remarks when correcting verse exercises, and was generally satisfied—with putting a mark under the mistakes of his boobies. This is not intended to depreciate his value as a schoolmaster. By no means; as a master, he had the more useful and valuable qualities, though he could not be said to have had much of poetry in his composition.
It is an old and generally received adage, “a man is known by the company he keeps.” We will not altogether apply this to ⸺ in the present case, because it is most willingly conceded that he had a great share of mildness and benevolence in his temper; and perhaps it might be illiberal to infer, that his kindness to certain individuals was the result of an entire congeniality and community of feeling. We trust that it was not, and more particularly with respect to one person, hereafter to be mentioned.
Of the subject of this article, little more remains to be said, than that he died prematurely, and much lamented by an extensive circle of friends and acquaintance. It does not appear that he left behind him any thing with the view of publication, though among his manuscripts, particularly when his long intimacy with Porson is remembered, there must probably have been many things well deserving of public notice.
Alterum genus est eorum, qui quanquam premuntur ære alieno, dominationem tamen expectant: rerum potiri volunt, honores quos quieta republica desperant, perturbata consequi se posse arbitrantur.
CHAPTER XL.
The individual alluded to in the conclusion of the preceding article was
J⸺ G⸺,
than whom a more extraordinary character has not of late years, appeared as a candidate for public notice.
He was born, if we mistake not, in the Island of St. Christopher’s, in the West-Indies. He was the presumed heir to considerable property, but this was the subject of legal dispute. In the interval, J⸺ was sent to England for his education, and being placed under the care of the late eminent surgeon, Mr. Bromfield, he was by that gentleman consigned to Doctor, at that time Mr. Parr. Mr. Parr having been disappointed in his views of succeeding Dr. Sumner in the head mastership of Harrow school, had established himself in its vicinity, at Stanmore, whither he brought with him many of his former pupils, sons of noblemen, and other distinguished persons.