Farewell' from the Iliad, but even Hamlet's celebrated monologue.
On one occasion, when I was in the fourth form of the school, one
of my schoolfellows, a boy named Starke, suddenly fell dead, and
the tragic event aroused so much sympathy, that not only did the
whole school attend the funeral, but the headmaster also ordered
that a poem should be written in commemoration of the ceremony,
and that this poem should be published. Of the various poems
submitted, among which there was one by myself, prepared very
hurriedly, none seemed to the master worthy of the honour which
he had promised, and he therefore announced his intention of
substituting one of his own speeches in the place of our rejected
attempts. Much distressed by this decision, I quickly sought out
Professor Sillig, with the view of urging him to intervene on
behalf of my poem. We thereupon went through it together. Its
well-constructed and well-rhymed verses, written in stanzas of
eight lines, determined him to revise the whole of it carefully.
Much of its imagery was bombastic, and far beyond the conception
of a boy of my age. I recollect that in one part I had drawn
extensively from the monologue in Addison's Cato, spoken by Cato
just before his suicide. I had met with this passage in an
English grammar, and it had made a deep impression upon me. The
words: 'The stars shall fade away, the sun himself grow dim with
age, and nature sink in years,' which, at all events, were a
direct plagiarism, made Sillig laugh--a thing at which I was a
little offended. However, I felt very grateful to him, for,
thanks to the care and rapidity with which he cleared my poem of
these extravagances, it was eventually accepted by the
headmaster, printed, and widely circulated.

The effect of this success was extraordinary, both on my