the coach, admonished me that I was now going into the world, and
must learn to think and act for myself. The expression may appear
ludicrous; yet there is not, in the course of life, a more
remarkable change than the removal of a child from the luxury and
freedom of a wealthy house, to the frugal diet and strict
subordination of a school; from the tenderness of parents, and the
obsequiousness of servants, to the rude familiarity of his equals,
the insolent tyranny of his seniors, and the rod, perhaps, of a
cruel and capricious pedagogue. Such hardships may steel the mind
and body against the injuries of fortune; but my timid reserve was
astonished by the crowd and tumult of the school; the want of
strength and activity disqualified me for the sports of the
play-field; nor have I forgotten how often in the year forty-six I
was reviled and buffeted for the sins of my Tory ancestors. By the
common methods of discipline, at the expence of many tears and some
blood, I purchased the knowledge of the Latin syntax: and not long
since I was possessed of the dirty volumes of Phaedrus and Cornelius
Nepos, which I painfully construed and darkly understood. The
choice of these authors is not injudicious. The lives of Cornelius
Nepos, the friend of Atticus and Cicero, are composed in the style
of the purest age: his simplicity is elegant, his brevity copious;
he exhibits a series of men and manners; and with such
illustrations, as every pedant is not indeed qualified to give, this
classic biographer may initiate a young student in the history of
Greece and Rome. The use of fables or apologues has been approved
in every age from ancient India to modern Europe. They convey in
familiar images the truths of morality and prudence; and the most
childish understanding (I advert to the scruples of Rousseau) will
not suppose either that beasts do speak, or that men may lie. A
fable represents the genuine characters of animals; and a skilful