annihilate each other. The wonderful power which he so boldly
exercised, of assembling doubts and objections, had tempted him
jocosely to assume the title of the {Greek expression} Zeus, the
cloud-compelling Jove; and in a conversation with the ingenious Abbe
(afterwards Cardinal) de Polignac, he freely disclosed his universal
Pyrrhonism. "I am most truly (said Bayle) a protestant; for I
protest indifferently against all systems and all sects."

The academical resentment, which I may possibly have provoked, will
prudently spare this plain narrative of my studies, or rather of my
idleness; and of the unfortunate event which shortened the term of
my residence at Oxford. But it may be suggested, that my father was
unlucky in the choice of a society, and the chance of a tutor. It
will perhaps be asserted, that in the lapse of forty years many
improvements have taken place in the college and in the university.
I am not unwilling to believe, that some tutors might have been
found more active than Dr. Waldgrave, and less contemptible than
Dr.****. About the same time, and in the same walk, a Bentham was
still treading in the footsteps of a Burton, whose maxims he had
adopted, and whose life he had published. The biographer indeed
preferred the school-logic to the new philosophy, Burgursdicius to
Locke; and the hero appears, in his own writings, a stiff and
conceited pedant. Yet even these men, according to the measure of
their capacity, might be diligent and useful; and it is recorded of
Burton, that he taught his pupils what he knew; some Latin, some
Greek, some ethics and metaphysics; referring them to proper masters
for the languages and sciences of which he was ignorant. At a more
recent period, many students have been attracted by the merit and
reputation of Sir William Scott, then a tutor in University College,
and now conspicuous in the profession of the civil law: my personal