brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole
remonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded the
cane with no great good will--holding it "like a dancer." It looked
in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority;
and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that
did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great
consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now
and then, but often staid away whole days from us; and when he came,
it made no difference to us--he had his private room to retire to, the
short time he staid, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth
and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden
to "insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current among
us--Peter Wilkins--the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle--the
Fortunate Blue Coat Boy--and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for
mechanic or scientific operations; making little sun-dials of paper;
or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called _cat-cradles_; or
making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the
art military over that laudable game "French and English," and a
hundred other such devices to pass away the time--mixing the useful
with the agreeable--as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John
Locke chuckle to have seen us.

Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect
to mix in equal proportion the _gentleman_, the _scholar_, and the
_Christian_; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally
found to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged
in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levée, when
he should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the
classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first
years of their education; and his very highest form seldom proceeded