from his father's house, surrounded by a group of gypsies, and deeply intent upon a story which one of them was relating to him. The boy, it seems, had taken care to secure their good will with some victuals which he had brought from his mother's pantry; and they, in return, had been exerting their talents for his amusement. Many of the stories which he thus obtained were treasured with great delight in his memory, and often brought out, as occasion served, for the amusement of his rustic audience.

He received the rudiments of his education at Uckfield, under the same Mr. Gerison whom we have already noticed : a clergyman, whose singular habits and scraps of learning are still remembered and talked of in that village and its neighbourhood. He had been long ago the curate of the grandfather; and, having had the care of the son, was now intrusted with the education of the grandson. What progress Edward Clarke made in grammar under this veteran schoolmaster does not appear; but it is evident from the following story, that, whether from his master or his schoolfellows, or both, he had imbibed a very barbarous pronunciation of his mother tongue.

In the later years of his life, Mr. Clarke's health so far declined, as to render the duty of the church, particularly in Lent, extremely fatiguing to him; and not thinking himself justified, under the circumstances of his family, in incurring the expense of a curate, he had been persuaded by his friends to allow his son Edward to relieve him, by reading one of the lessons. Accordingly, upon a day appointed, Edward took his station in the desk beside his father; and when the time for his part arrived, began, with a voice which was always strong and sonorous, to read aloud the chapter allotted to him. It happened to be the 10th of St. Luke, which contains

the story of the good Samaritan. The affair went on tolerably well for some time; but when he arrived at the 35th verse, and had uttered with a genuine Sussex twang, " And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out tuppence, and gave them to the host," his father, unable any longer to tolerate the sound, and dreading something more of the same character, gave him secretly a sharp twitch on the foot, and pushing him impatiently away, finished the lesson himself. Nor could he ever afterward be prevailed upon to renew the experiment. Under such unlucky auspices did the subject of this memoir commence the practice of an accomplishment, which, in after life, he carried to so great a degree of perfection, that no one ever heard him in private reading or recitation, or in the exercise of his public duties as a lecturer or a preacher, without being struck with the correctness of his pronunciation, and delighted with the sweetness of his voice, and the skill and good taste with which he managed it.

In 1779, being somewhat more than ten years old, he was removed from his village preceptor, and sent with his two brothers to the grammar-school of Tunbridge, at that time conducted by Dr. Vicesimus Knox. But here his progress did not seem to be very satisfactory. Dr. Knox acknowledged his abilities: nor was it probable, indeed, that an intelligent mind like his could be insensible to the existence of talents which were obvious to every ordinary observer; but he was soon compelled to complain that his pupil was deficient in application. To many, who have witnessed the laborious habits of his later days, this report will probably appear extraordinary; and to others, who were acquainted with many traits of patient industry exhibited by him even at the time we speak of, we know that

it has appeared erroneous. But, notwithstanding this persuasion, there cannot be the slightest doubt of the justice of the complaint, so far as the usual objects of boyish education were concerned; for, besides the unquestionable authority upon which it rests, the fact was well known to his schoolfellows at the time, many of whom are now living; and was decisively confirmed by the state of his classical acquirements when he came to College.

In truth, his case, though rare, is by no means singular: nor are such instances confined to great schools, although they are certainly much more likely to occur where the superintendance of the principal is extremely subdivided, than where the smallness of the number will admit of more individual attention and more discriminating care. It happens unavoidably in seminaries, where many boys are classed and taught together, that only one plan of instruction and one class of stimulants can be employed. Now admitting, what many would be disposed to question, that for every practical purpose the same mode of instruction may be equally applicable to all, it is obvious that the effects of the same stimulants must be as various as the dispositions which are submitted to them; and since the different progress of boys will depend not only upon the measure in which the powers of memory, perception, and attention, are severally possessed by them, but also upon the degree in which they are excited and developed by the means employed, it may and does frequently happen, that a boy of good natural parts will fail of making an adequate advancement amongst his schoolfellows, merely from the circumstance of these stimulants not being such as would be the most effectual with him.

But if, in addition to this want of sensibility to the ordinary

excitements, he should have imbibed an early taste for some particular pursuit, foreign to the immediate business of the school, and should possess withal the means of indulging it, the evil is then greatly aggravated. The powers of his mind become diverted from their appropriate labours to others which are less suited to his age, and of course less profitable to him and his improvement in the school is impeded not only by the time occupied in his favourite pursuits at the expense of his allotted task, but also in proportion as the pleasure he derives from the studies of his own choice indisposes him for those which, besides their having no apparent object, are only associated in his mind with ideas of punishment and privation. For this evil, which, when it has once begun, every succeeding day renders more inveterate, a large school affords no prospect of relief; for however accessible a boy's mind may be to some of his schoolfellows, it is generally closed to the master, who, having no clue to the cause of his failure, would be at a loss to administer the even if the choice were ready to his hand.

proper remedy,

Such, we apprehend, was the case with Edward Clarke; for, while he had justly enough the character with his master of being an idle boy, while he was notorious with his schoolfellows not only for the neglect of his own exercises, but also for the ingenious and good-natured tricks which he played to interrupt the labour of others, he had his own studies, which he was delighted to cultivate, and his own quiet hours which he contrived to set aside for them. It is communicated to us, upon the best authority, that he was in the habit of saving his pocket-money to buy candles, and that, after his schoolfellows were asleep, and all the house at rest, he would settle himself in bed comfortably for reading, and occupy his mind

with some favourite book; and that, one night in particular, having pursued his studies longer than usual, and sleep having crept upon him unawares, he was only prevented from being burnt in bed by the seasonable arrival of the usher, who happily came in at the very moment when the bed-clothes had taken fire.

It cannot be questioned that these eccentric habits have their enjoyments; it may also be true, that in particular cases they lay the seeds of future compensation in the independent character which they give to a man's exertions in his future life, and in the habit which they nourish and support of seeking pleasure from study, distinct altogether from a sense of the advantages to which it leads; a pleasure which no one possessed more amply, or relished more keenly, than he of whom we speak. But, lest any one, who may chance to read these pages, should be disposed to imitate his example, or to look upon it with complacency in others, it cannot be too strongly urged, that the experiment is exceedingly perilous, and would rarely be successful, even in the partial view we have mentioned; that the loss arising from it is immediate, decisive, and often irremediable, being sometimes nothing less than utter ruin to the boy; while the advantage is distant, obscure, and to the last degree uncertain; capable of being reaped only by a few, and, even with these, dependant upon a fortunate concurrence of circumstances which can rarely be supposed: and, lastly, that Dr. Clarke himself always felt very sensibly, and regretted most forcibly, the disadvantages under which he laboured from his neglect, in his earlier years, of the ordinary school studies.

What those attractive subjects were which thus engrossed the attention of Edward Clarke, to the manifest injury of his