public spirit, the free exercise of which, although it consigned his
forefather as well as his descendant to the _same_ prison; yet, such is
the consoling and heart-cheering effect of following the dictates of an
honest mind, that it not only tranquillizes the passions, and checks their
overflowing the due bounds of discretion, while under the influence of
prosperity, but also conveys to the persecuted captive that inward
satisfaction, which makes reflection, even in a prison, a source of
delight, and teaches him to despise that outward shew of mirth and
affected gaiety which accompany the selfish votaries of pleasure, who
sacrifice every honest independent principle at the shrine of fashion,
till the man is degraded to a mere time-serving pander in the Temple of
Folly.

When I left this school, Mr. Cooper, the master, came round during the
holidays, as was customary, to collect his bills. My father, having
settled the amount and invited him to dine, informed him of his intention
to remove me to Hursley, in Hampshire; which he did at the recommendation
of Sir Thomas Heathcot, whom he had met at Mr. Wyndham's, at Dinton, of
whom my father rented Widdington Farm. Mr. Cooper, who was one of the best
hearted and worthy men that perhaps ever lived, and who possessed as
little of the pedantry and stiffness of a schoolmaster, as any man who had
spent his life in such an occupation, replied, that he was very sorry to
part with me, as he had no doubt I should some day make as clever, and he
hoped as good, a man as my father. The only fault in me of which he had to
complain was, that I was too volatile, and inattentive to my books; but he
added, that he could already discover sufficient capacity to enable me,
with a little steadiness, to become a very good scholar. Then, addressing
himself particularly to my mother, he said, that he was bound in justice
to declare, that he had not a more tractable or better-disposed boy in his
school; that I was a generous and warm-hearted lad, and that my