a note subjoined:--

"I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can
comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by
heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and
advantage deadened and destroyed by the didactic anticipation, at an
age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of
compositions, which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as
Latin and Greek, to relish or to reason upon. For the same reason,
we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages
of Shakspeare ('To be, or not to be,' for instance), from the habit
of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise
not of mind but of memory; so that when we are old enough to enjoy
them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of
the Continent, young persons are taught from mere common authors, and
do not read the best classics until their maturity. I certainly do
not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place
of my education. I was not a slow or an idle boy; and I believe no
one could be more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and
with reason: a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my
life; and my preceptor, the Rev. Dr Joseph Drury, was the best and
worthiest friend I ever possessed; whose warnings I have remembered
but too well, though too late, when I have erred; and whose counsels
I have but followed when I have done well and wisely. If ever this
imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes,
let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude
and veneration; of one who would more gladly boast of having been his
pupil if, by more closely following his injunctions, he could reflect
any honour upon his instructor."