visage, the goggle eyes, the huge under-jaw, which appeared not to
open and shut by an act of volition, but to be dropped and hoisted
up again by some complicated machinery within the inner man,--the
harsh and dissonant voice. and the screech-owl notes to which it
was exalted when he was exhorted to pronounce more distinctly,--
all added fresh subject for mirth to the torn cloak and shattered
shoe, which have afforded legitimate subjects of raillery against
the poor scholar, from Juvenal's time downward. It was never known
that Sampson either exhibited irritability at this ill usage, or
made the least attempt to retort upon his tormentors. He slunk
from college by the most secret paths he could discover, and
plunged himself into his miserable lodgings, where, for
eighteenpence a week, he was allowed the benefit of a straw
mattress, and, if his landlady was in good humour, permission to
study his task by her fire. Under all these disadvantages, he
obtained a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, and some
acquaintance with the sciences.

In progress of time, Abel Sampson, probationer of divinity, was
admitted to the privileges of a preacher. But, alas! partly from
his own bashfulness, partly owing to a strong and obvious
disposition to risibility which pervaded the congregation upon his
first attempt, he became totally incapable of proceeding in his
intended discourse, gasped, grinned, hideously rolled his eyes till
the congregation thought them flying out of his head, shut the
Bible, stumbled down the pulpit-stairs, trampling upon the old
women who generally take their station there, and was ever after
designated as a "stickit minister." And thus he wandered back to
his own country, with blighted hopes and prospects, to share the
poverty of his parents. As he had neither friend nor confidant,