tradition prevailed that fome of our predeceffors had spoken Latin declamations, in the hall; but of this ancient cuftom no veftige remained; the obvious methods of public exercifes and examinations were totally unknown; and I have never heard that either the prefident or the fociety interfered in the private economy of the tutors and their pupils,

The filence of the Oxford profeffors, which deprives the youth of public inftruction, is imperfectly fupplied by the tutors, as they are ftyled, of the feveral colleges. Instead of confining themselves to a fingle fçience, which had fatisfied the ambition of Burman or Bernoulli, they teach, or promife to teach, either history or mathematics, or ancient literature, or moral philofophy; and as it is poffible that they may be defective in all, it is highly probable that of fome they will be ignorant. They are paid, indeed, by private contributions; but their appointment depends on the head of the house; their diligence is voluntary, and will confequently be languid, while the pupils themselves, or their parents, are not indulged in the liberty of choice or change. The firft tutor into whofe hands I was refigned appears to have been one of the best of the tribe: Dr. Waldegrave was a learned and pious man, of a mild difpofition, ftrict morals, and abftemious life, who feldom mingled in the politics or the jollity of the college. But his knowledge of the world was confined to the univerfity; his learning was of the laft, rather than of the prefent age; his temper was indolent; his faculties, which were not of the first rate, had been relaxed by the climate, and he was fatisfied, like his fellows, with the flight and fuperficial discharge of an important truft. As foon as my tutor had founded the infufficiency of his difciple in school-learning, he propofed that we should read every morning from ten to eleven the comedies of Terence. The fum of my improvement in the university of Oxford is confined to three or four Latin plays; and even the ftudy of an ele

gant

gant claffic, which might have been illuftrated by a comparifon of antient and modern theatres, was reduced to a dry and literal interpretation of the author's text. During the first weeks I conftantly attended these leffons in my tutor's room; but as they appeared equally devoid of profit and pleasure, I was once tempted to try the experiment of a formal apology. The apology was accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence with lefs ceremony; the excufe was admitted with the fame indulgence: the flighteft motive of laziness or indifpofition, the moft trifling avocation at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment; nor did my tutor appear conscious of my abfence or neglect. Had the hour of lecture been conftantly filled, a fingle hour was a small portion of my academic leisure. No plan of ftudy was recommended for my ufe; no exercises were prefcribed for his inspection; and, at the most precious feafon of youth, whole days and weeks were fuffered to elapfe without labour or amusement, without advice or account. I fhould have liftened to the voice of reason and of my tutor; his mild behaviour had gained my confidence. I preferred his fociety to that of the younger ftudents; and in our evening walks to the top of Heddington-hill, we freely conversed on a variety of fubjects. Since the days of Pocock and Hyde, Oriental learning has always been the pride of Oxford, and I once expreffed an inclination to Study Arabic. His prudence difcouraged this childish fancy; but he neglected the fair occasion of directing the ardour of a curious mind. During my absence in the Summer vacation, Dr. Waldegrave accepted a college living at Washington in Suffex, and on my return I no longer found him at Oxford. From that time I have loft fight of my first tutor; but at the end of thirty years (1781) he was ftill alive; and the practice of exercise and temperance had entitled him to a healthy old age.

The long recefs between the Trinity and Michaelmaș terms empties the colleges of Oxford, as well as the courts

of

of Westminster. I spent, at my father's house at Buriton in Hampshire, the two months of Auguft and September. It is whimsical enough, that as foon as I left Magdalen College, my tafte for books began to revive; but it was the fame blind and boyish tafte for the purfuit of exotic history, Unprovided with original learning, ynformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolv¬ ed to write a book. The title of this firft Effay, the Age of Sefoftris, was perhaps fuggefted by Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV. which was new and popular; but my fole object was to investigate the probable date of the life and reign of the conqueror of Afia. I was then enamoured of Sir John Marsham's Canon Chronicus; an elaborate work, of whofe merits and defects I was not yet qualified to judge. According to his fpecious, though narrow plan, I fettled my hero about the time of Solomon, in the tenth century before the Chriftian æra. It was therefore incumbent on me, unless I would adopt Sir Ifaac Newton's fhorter chronology, to remove a formidable objection; and my folution, for a youth of fifteen, is not devoid of ingenuity. In his verfion of the Sacred Books, Manetho the high priest has identified Sethofis, or Sefoftris, with the elder brother of Danaus, who landed in Greece, according to the Parian Marble, fifteen hundred and ten years before Chrift. But in my supposition the high priest is guilty of a voluntary error; flattery is the prolific parent of falsehood, Manetho's Hiftory of Egypt is dedicated to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who derived a fabulous or illegitimate pedigree from the Macedonian kings of the race of Hercules. Danaus is the ancestor of Hercules; and after the failure of the elder branch, his defcendants, the Ptolemies, are the fole representatives of the royal family, and may claim by inheritance the kingdom which they hold by conqueft. Such were my juvenile discoveries; at a riper age, I no longer prefume to connect the Greek, the Jewish, and the Egyptian antiqui ties, which are loft in a diftant cloud. Nor is this the only inftance, in which the belief and knowledge of the child are

fuper

42

fuperfeded by the more rational ignorance of the man, During my stay at Buriton, my infant-labour was diligently profecuted, without much interruption from company or country diverfions; and I already heard the mufic of pub lic applause. The discovery of my own weakness was the firft fymptom of tafte. On my return to Oxford, the Age of Sefoftris was wifely relinquifhed; but the imperfect fheets remained twenty years at the bottom of a drawer, till, in a general clearance of papers, (November 1772,) they were committed to the flames.

After the departure of Dr. Waldegrave, I was transferred, with his other pupils, to his academical heir, whose literary character did not command the refpect of the college. Dr. **** well remembered that he had a falary to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to perform. Inftead of guiding the ftudies, and watching over the behaviour of his disciple, I was never fummoned to attend even the ceremony of a lecture; and, excepting one voluntary vifit to his rooms, during the eight months of his titular office, the tutor and pupil lived in the fame college as ftrangers to each other. The want of experience, of advice, and of occu pation, foon betrayed me into fome improprieties of conduct, ill-chofen company, late hours, and inconfiderate expence. My growing debts might be fecret; but my frequent abfence was vifible and fcandalous; and a tour to Bath, a vifit into Buckinghamshire, and four excurfions to London in the fame winter, were coftly and dangerous frolics. They were, indeed, without a meaning, as with out an excufe. The irksomeness of a cloistered life repeatedly tempted me to wander; but my chief pleasure was that of travelling; and I was too young and bafhful to enjoy, like a manly Oxonian in Town, the pleasures of London. In all thefe excurfions I eloped from Oxford; I returned to college; in a few days I eloped again, as if I had been an independent stranger in a hired lodging, without once hearing the voice of admonition, without once feeling the hand of control. Yet my time was loft, my expences were mul

tiplied,

tiplied, my behaviour abroad was unknown; folly as well as vice fhould have awakened the attention of my fuperiors

and

my tender years would have juftified a more than ordinary degree of reftraint and difcipline.

It might at least be expected, that an ecclefiaftical school fhould inculcate the orthodox principles of religion. But our venerable mother had contrived to unite the oppofite extremes of bigotry and indifference; an heretic, or unbeliever, was a monster in her eyes; but he was always, or often, or fometimes, remifs in the fpiritual education of her own children, According to the statutes of the university, every student, before he is matriculated, muft fubfcribe his affent to the thirty-nine articles of the church of England, which are figned by more than read, and read by more than believe them. My infufficient age excufed me, however, from the immediate performance of this legal ceremony; and the vice-chancellor directed me to return, as foon as I fhould have accomplished my fifteenth year; recommending me, in the mean while, to the inftruction of my college. My college forgot to inftruct: I forgot to return, and was myfelf forgotten by the firft magiftrate of the univerfity. Without a fingle lecture, either public or private, either. chriftian or proteftant, without any academical fubfcription, without any epifcopal confirmation, I was left by the dim light of my catechifin to grope my way to the chapel and communion-table, where I was admitted, without a queftion, how far, or by what means, I might be qualified to receive the facrament. Such almoft incredible neglect was productive of the worst mifchiefs. From my childhood I had been fond of religious difputation: my poor aunt has been often puzzled by the myfteries which the ftrove to believe; nor had the elastic spring been totally broken by the weight of the atmosphere of Oxford. The blind activity of idlenefs urged me to advance without armour into the dangerous mazes of controverfy; and at the age of fixteen, I bewildered myfelf in the errors of the church of Rome.

The