From a poem by a Westminster Scholar, written during Dr. Friend's Mastership, in 1699.

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"What say you to a stroll through Thorney Island,{1} this morning?" said old Crony, with whom I had been taking a dÉjeunÉ À la fourchette; "you have indulged your readers with all the whims and eccentricities of Eton and of Oxford, and, in common justice, you must not pass by the Westminster blacks."{2} Crony had, I learned, been a foundation scholar during the mastership of Dr. Samuel Smith; when the poet Churchill, Robert Lloyd, (the son of the under-master) Bonnel Thornton, George Colman the elder, Richard Cumberland, and a host of other highly-gifted names, were associated within the precincts of the abbey cloisters. Our way towards

Westminster from the Surrey side of Vauxhall bridge, where Crony had taken up his abode, lay through the scene of his earliest recollections; and, not even Crockery himself could have been more pathetic in his lamentations over the improvements of modern times. "Here," said Crony, placing himself upon the rising ground which commands an uninterrupted view of the bank, right and left, and fronts the new road to Chelsea, and, the Grosvenor property; "here, in my boyish days, used the Westminster scholars to congregate for sports and sprees. Many a juvenile frolic have I been engaged in beneath the shadowy willows that then o'ercanopied the margin of old father Thames; but they are almost all destroyed, and with them disappears the fondest recollections of my youth. Upwards, near yonder frail tenement which is now fast mouldering into decay, lived the beautiful gardener's daughter, the flower of Millbank, whose charms for a long time excited the admiration of many a noble name, ay, and inspired many a noble strain too, and produced a chivalrous rivalry among the young and generous hearts who were then of Westminster. Close to that spot all matches on the water were determined; and beneath yon penthouse, many a jovial cup have I partook of with the contending parties, when the aquatic sports were over, in the evening's cool retirement, or seated on the benches which then filled up the space between the trees in front of Watermans' Hall, as the little public house then used to be called. About half a mile above was the favourite bathing-place; and just over the water below Lambeth palace, yet may be seen Doo's house, where, from time immemorial, the Westminster boys had been supplied with funnies, skiffs, wherries, and sailing-boats. The old mill which formerly stood on the right-hand of the river, and from which the place derived its name, has now entirely disappeared; and in lieu of the green fields and pleasant walks with which this part of the suburbs abounded, we have now a number of square brick-dust tubs, miscalled cottages ornÉe, and a strange-looking Turkish sort of a prison called a Penitentiary, which from being judiciously placed in a swamp is rendered completely uninhabitable. Cumberland-gardens, on the opposite side, was, in former times, in great vogue; here the cits used to rusticate on a summer's evening, coming up the water in shoals to show their dexterity in rowing, and daring the dangers of the watery element to blow a cloud in the fresh air, and ruralise upon the 'margin of old father Thames.' ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE

But where can the Westminster boys of the present day look for amusements? there's no snug spot now for a dog-tight or a badger-bait. Earl Grosvenor has converted all the green lanes into Macadamised roads, and covered the turf with new brick tenements. No taking a pleasant toodle with a friend now along the sequestered banks, or shooting a few sparrows or fieldfares in the neighbourhood of the five chimnies{3} not a space to be found free from the encroachments of modern speculators, or big enough for a bowling alley or a cricket match. Tothill-fields have altogether disappeared; and the wand of old Merlin would appear to have waved over and dispersed the most trifling vestiges and recollections of the past. A truce with your improvements!" said Crony, combating my attempt to harmonise his feelings; "tell me what increases the lover's boldness and the maiden's tenderness more than the fresh and fragrant air, the green herbage, and the quiet privacy of retired spots, where all nature yields a delightful inspiration to the mind. There where the lovers find delight, the student finds repose, secluded from the busy haunts of men, and yet able, by a few strides, to mingle again at pleasure with the world, the man of

contemplation turns aside to consult his favourite theme, and having run out his present stock of thoughtful meditation, wheels him round, and finds himself one of the busy group again.{4} As we advance

in life we cling still closer to the recollections of our infancy; the cheerful man loves to dwell over the scenes and frolics of his boyish days; and we are stricken to the very heart by the removal or change of these pleasant localities; the loss of an old servant, an old building, or an old tree, is felt like the loss of an old friend. The paths, and fields, and rambles of our infancy are endeared to us by the fondest and the purest feelings of the mind; we lose sight of our increasing infirmities, as we retrace the joyous mementos of the past, and gain new vigour as we recall the fleeting fancies and pleasant vagaries of our earliest days. I am one of those," continued Crony, "who am doomed to deplore the destructive advances of what generally goes by the name of improvement; and yet, I am not insensible to the great and praiseworthy efforts of the sovereign to increase the splendour of the capital westward; but leave me a few of the green fields and hedgerow walks which used to encircle the metropolis, or, in a short space, the first stage from home will only be half-way out of London. A humorous writer of the day observes, that 'the rage for building fills every pleasant outlet with bricks, mortar,rubbish,and eternal scaffold-poles, which, whether you walk east, west, north, or south, seem to be running after you. I heard a gentleman say, the other day, that he was sure a resident of the suburbs could scarcely lie down after dinner, and take a nap, without finding, when he awoke, that a new row of buildings had started up since he closed his eyes. It is certainly astonishing: one would think the builders used magic, or steam at least, and it would be curious to ask those gentlemen in what part of the neighbouring counties they intend London should end. Not content with separate streets, squares, and rows, they are actually the founders of new towns, which in the space of a few months become finished and inhabited. The precincts of London have more the appearance of a newly-discovered colony than the suburbs of an ancient city.{5} And what, sir, will be the pleasant consequences of all this to posterity? Instead of having houses built to encumber the earth for a century or two, it is ten to one but they disencumber the mortgagee, by falling down with a terrible crash during the first half life, and, perhaps, burying a host of persons in their ruins. Mere paste-board palaces are the structures of the present times, composed of lath and plaster, and Parker's cement, a few coloured bricks, a fanciful viranda, and a balcony, embellished within by the dÉcorateur, and stuccoed or whitewashed without, to give them a light appearance, and hide the defects of an ignorant architect or an unskilful builder; while a very few years introduces the occupant to all the delightful sensations of cracked walls, swagged floors, bulged fronts, sinking roofs, leaking gutters, inadequate drains, and other innumerable ills, the effects of an originally bad constitution, which dispels any thing like the hopes of a reversionary interest, and clearly proves that without a renovation equal to resurrection, both the building and the occupant are very likely to fall victims to a rapid consumption." In this way did Crony contrive to beguile the time, until we found ourselves entering the arena in front of the Dean's house, Westminster. "Here, alone," said my old friend, "the hand of the innovator has not been permitted to intrude; this spot remains unpolluted; but, for the neighbourhood, alas!" sighed Crony, "that is changed indeed. The tavern in Union-street,

where Charles Churchill, and Lloyd, and Bonnel Thornton used to meet and mix wit, and whim, and strong potation, has sunk into a common pot-house, and is wholly neglected by the scholars of the present time: not that they are a whit more moral than their predecessors, but, professing to be more refined, they are now to be found at the Tavistock, or the Hummums, at Long's, or Steven's; more polished in their pleasures, but more expensive in their pursuits." ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE

As we approached the centre of Dean's-yard, Crony's visage evidently grew more sentimental; the curved lips of the cynic straightened to an expression of kindlier feeling, and ere we had arrived at the school-door, the old eccentric had mellowed down into a generous contemplatist. "Ay," said Crony, "on this spot, Mr. Black mantle, half a century ago, was I, a light-hearted child of whim, as you are now, associated with some of the greatest names that have since figured in the history of our times, many of whom are now sleeping in their tombs beneath a weight of worldly honours, while some few have left a nobler and a surer monument to exalt them with posterity, the well-earned tribute of a nation's gratitude, the never-fading fame which attaches itself to good works and great actions. Among the few families of my time who might be styled ''magni nominis' in college, were the Finches, the Drummonds, (arch-bishop's sons), and the Markhams. Tom Steele{6} was on the foundation also, and had much fame in playing Davus. The Hothams{7} were considered among the lucky hits of Westminster; the Byngs{8} thought not as lucky as they should have been. Mr. Drake{9}

of Amersham was one of the best scholars of his time; for a particular act of beneficence, two guineas given out of his private pocket-money to a poor sufferer by a fire, Dr. Smith gave him a public reward of some books. Lord Carmarthen{10} here came to the title, on the death of his eldest brother. Here too he found the Jacksons, and what was more, the Jacksons{11} found him. Lord Foley had, during his stay here, two narrow escapes for his life, once being nearly drowned in the Thames, and secondly, by a hack-horse running away with him: the last incident was truly ominous of the noble lord's favourite, but unfortunate pursuits{12}. Sir John St. Aubyn is here said to have formed his attachments with several established characters in the commercial world, as Mr. Beckett, and others; which afterwards proved of the highest consequence to his pursuits and success in life. Lord Bulkley had the credit of being one of the handsomest and best-humoured boys of his time, and so he continued through life. Michael Angelo Taylor{13} was remarkable for his close application, under his tutor Hume, and the tutor as remarkable for application to him.

Hatton, junior. Lawyers, if not always good scholars, generally are something better; with much strong practical sense, and a variety of all that "makes a ready man; "Hatton was all this, both as to scholarship, and the pertinent application of it. Though a nephew of Lord Mansfield, and bred up under his auspices, he was not more remarkable than his brother George for the love of bullion. His abilities were great, and they would have been greatly thought of, had he been personally less locomotive. "Ah, ah," said his uncle, "you'll never prosper till you learn to stay in a place." He replied, "O never fear, sir, do but get me a place; and I'll learn of you to stay in it."

Lord Deerhurst (now Earl of Coventry) had then, as now, very quick parts, and early insight into beautiful composition. Whatever good thing he met with, he was always ready with an immediate parallel; Latin, Greek, or from honesty into English, nothing came amiss to him. He had a quick sense of the ridiculous; and could scout a character at all absurd and suspicious, with as much pleasant scurrility as a gentleman need have.

Banks always made his own exercises, as his exercises have since made him. He was a diligent and good boy; and though an early arithmetician, and fond of numbers, he was as soon distinguished for very honourable indifference to number one.

Douglas (now, I believe, Marquis of Queensberry) was remarkable for the worst penmanship in the school, and the economy of last moments; till then he seldom thought of an exercise. His favourite exercise was in Tothill-fields; from whence returning once very late, he instantly conceived and executed some verses, that were the best of his day. On another day, he was as prompt, and thought to have been more lucky than before; when, lo, the next morning he was flogged! for the exercise was so ill written, that it was not legible even by himself.

Lord Maiden was remarkable for his powers of engaging, and he then, as since, made some engagements, which might as well have been let alone. He made an early promise of all he has since performed. He was very fond of dramatic entertainments, and he enacted much; was accounted a good actor; so was his crony, Jack Wilson, so well known at Mrs. Hobart's, &c., for his fal de ral tit and for his duets with Lady Craven, Lady A. Foley, &c, &c.

Lord MANSFIELD, then William Murray, here began his career. When at school, he was not remarkable for personal courage, or for mental bravery; though one of the stoutest boys of his standing, he was often beat by boys a year or two below him; and though then acute and voluble, his opinions were suppressed and retracted before minds less powerful but more intrepid than his own. Of his money allowance he was always so good a manager, that he could lend to him who was in need. The famous exercise which NiÇois made such a rout about, was in praise of abundance: an English theme on this thesis, from Horace—

He was in college; and no man on earth could conjecture that in his own acervo there would ever be aggrandizement, such as it has since occurred.

Lord Stormont at school began his knack of oral imitations, and when a child, could speak quite as well as afterwards; after his uncle, the disgusting pronunciation of the letter o then too infected his language; he made it come to the ear like an a. Humorously glancing at this affectation, Onslow or Stanhope said "Murray's horse is an ass."

Markham, the Archbishop of York, made an early display of classical taste, and the diligent cultivation of it. Some of his school exercises are extant, and show more than a promise of that refinement and exactness, which afterwards distinguished his performances at Christ Church. The Latin version of the fragment of Simonides, as beautiful as any thing in the whole range of poetical imitation, though published in the Oxford Lachrymo as Mr. Bournes, is known to be written by Mr. Markham.

At school, too, Markham's conversation had a particularity known to distinguish it. War was his favourite topic, and caught, perhaps, from the worthy major, his father, and from his crony Webb, afterwards the general. It was apparent upon all occasions; when he was to choose his reading as a private study, in the sixth form, CÆsar was his first book; and so continuing through most of his leisure time addicted to this sort of inquiry, the archbishop was afterwards able to talk war with any soldier in England. But, indeed, what is there he could not talk equal to any competitor? To the Archbishop Markham, and through him to Westminster, attach the credit of the good scholarship of the present king. This is little less than a credit to the country.

The Marquis of Stafford had fame for his English exercises; and after saying this of his Wednesday nights' themes, let it also be noted, that he had fame for other exercises of old England. He could ride, run, row, and bat better than most of his comtemporaries; in his potations, too, he was rather deep; but though deep, yet clear; and though gentle, yet not dull. At once a most jolly fellow, and the most magnificent of his time,—and so "ab incepto processerit."

The Duke of Dorset, then Sackville, (since dead) was good-humoured, manly, frank, and passionately fond of various school exercises; as billiards, at the alehouse in Union-street, (then perhaps a tavern) and double-fives between the two walls at the school-door. For Tothill-fields fame as to cricket, he was yet more renowned: there he was the champion of the town-boys against those in college; and in the great annual match, he had an innings that might have lasted till the time Baccelli run him out, had not the other side given up the game.

As to the school itself, there it was easy to catch him out; though such was his address, that he was seldom caught out. When he was in school, really few boys were there to better purpose; he made several good prose exercises both in English and Latin; and, what is rare for a boy of rank, with but small aid from the tutor.

At school, he shot and rowed pretty well; and as he could not always pay for his boat in specie, somebody proposed a barter of Tothill-fields game; but he had a soul above it, and what was more, at his elbow another soul, saying, Carpamus dulcia, and of my dressing. That friend was

Lord Edward Bentinck, whose culinary fame began on the sparrows and fieldfares knocked down about the Five Chimnies and Jenny's whim. At a bill of fare, and the science how dinner should be put before him, he was then, as since, unrivalled; yet more to his good memorial, he knew how a dinner should be put before other people. For one day, as he was beginning to revel in a surreptitious banquet in the Bowling-alley, his share of the mess Lord Edward gave to the relief of want, which then happened to be wandering by the window.—"This praise shall last."

Old Elwes, the late member for Berks, may occur, on the mention of want wandering by, though, notwithstanding appearance, he suffered nobody about him to be in such wants as himself. Penurious, perhaps, on small objects; in those which are greater, he was certainly liberal almost to prodigality. The hoarding principle might be strong in him, but in the conduct of it he was often generous, always easy. No man in England probably lost more money in large sums, for want of asking for it: for small money, as in farthings to street beggary, few men probably have lost less. What he had not sufficiently cultivated, was the habit of letting money easily go. So far, he was the reverse of Charles the Second; for on greater occasions, again I say it, he seemed to own the act under the ennobling impulse of systematic generosity, expanding equally in self-denial, and in social sympathy. He was among the most dispassionate and tender-tempered men alive; and, considering all things, it might be reasonable to allot him the meed of meekness upon earth, and of that virtue which seeketh not her own reward.

His ruling passion was the love of ease.

The beginnings of all this were more or less discernible at school, where Lord Mansfield gave him the nick-name of Jack Meggot.

His other little particularities were the best running and walking in the school, and the commencement of his fame for riding, which, in the well-known trials in the Swiss Academy, outdid all competition. Worsley, of the Board of Works, alone divided the palm; he rode more gracefully. Elwes was by far the boldest rider.

The Duke of Portland (who died in 1809) was among the delicciÆ of each form at Westminster, in all that appertained to temper, the tenderness and warmth of feeling, suavity of approach, and the whole passive power of pleasing. Thus much internal worth, tempered with but little of those showy powers which dazzle and seduce, gave early promise that he would escape all intriguing politics, and never degrade himself by the projects of party; for a party-man must always be comparatively mean, even on a scale of vicious dignity; in violence, subordinate to the ruffian; in chicane, below a common town-sharper.

He had, happily, no talents for party; he was better used by nature. He seemed formed for the kindliest offices of life; to appreciate the worth, and establish the dignity of domestic duties; to exemplify the hardest tasks of friendship and affinity; to display each hospitable charm.

All that he afterwards did for Chace Price, and Lord Eduard, appeared as a flower in its bud, in Dean's-yard and Tothill-fields, with the fruit-woman under the Gateway, and the coffee-house then opposite.

In his school-exercises, fame is not remembered to have followed any but his Wednesday evening themes: some of them were incomparably the best of the standing. In the rest of the school business, said the master to him one day, "you just keep on this side whipping."

His smaller habits were none remarkable, except that his diet was rather more blameable in the article of wine. A little too early; a little too much.

This, probably, more than any hereditary taint, made him, in immediate manhood, a martyr to the gout.

Against this, his ancestor's nostrum was tried in vain; the disease would not yield, till it was overborne by abstinence, which, to the praise of the duke's temper, he began and continued, with a splendour of resolution not any where exceeded.

The duke had been long estranged from all animal food but fish, and every fermented liquor. According to the old Latin distich, the poetry of a water-drinker is said to be short-lived, and not fit to live: was this proverbial doom extended to what was not poetry, it might be checked by the prose of the Duke of Portland. Most of his common letters were among the models of epistolary correspondence.

The Duke of Beaufort{14} exhibited at school more of the rudiments of a country gentleman, than the rudiments of Busby; he knew a horse practically, while other boys took it only from description in Virgil.

Stare loco nescit, was however his motto; and through all the demesnes adjacent to his little reign, on the water, and in the water, he was well; on horseback he was yet better; and to ride, or tie, on foot, or on horseback, no boy of his time was more ready at every good turn. He loved his friend; and, such were the engaging powers of his very frank and pleasant manner, his friends all loved him.

Some encumbrances, solito de more of all boys, with the coffee-house, for jellies, fruit, &c, left when he left school, he afterwards discharged with singular Éclat.

In regard to scholarship, he was by no means wanting; though it must be owned, he wanted always to be better strangers with them. Like many other boys, he knew much more than he was aware of; for he had as much aversion to the Greek Epigrams, as the best critic could have; and in Terence, as he could find nothing to laugh, Lloyd often raised an opposite emotion. Lloyd, had he lived to this time, would have taken Terence as a main ingredient in his enjoyments. So benevolent is nature to fit the feelings of man to his destiny.

M'Donald, afterwards Solicitor General, was in college, and had then about him much that was remarkable for good value.

The different ranks in college are rather arduous trials of temper; and he that can escape without imputation through them, and be, as it is called, a junior without meanness, and a senior without obduracy, exhibits much early promise, both as to talents and virtue.

This early promise was M 'Donald's. He was well-respected in either rank, and he deserved it; for he obeyed the time, without being time-serving; he commanded, as one not forgetting what it was to obey.

Par negotiis, neque supra, characterised his scholarship.

He had in every form sufficiency, and sometimes eminence. He had more facility in Greek than most boys; his English exercises were conspicuous for language and neatness of turn.

He was a very uncorrupt boy, and his manners were rather elevated; yet it is not remembered that he lost popularity even with the worst boys in the school; the whole secret of which was specie minus quam vi. He was better than he seemed. There was no pride, no offending wish at seclusion.

Though not so remarkable for book knowledge as his brother Sir James, who thus, indeed, was nothing less than a prodigy, yet was M'Donald extremely well and very variously read. In miscellaneous information, far more accomplished than any boy of his time.

Markham, the master, had a high opinion of him; and once, in the midst of strong and favourable prognostics, said, "There was nothing against him but what was for him; rank and connections, and the too probable event of thence advancing into life too forward and too early."

Markham spoke with much sagacity. The rosa sera is the thing, for safe and spreading efflorescence. Well as the wreath might be about M'Donald's brow, it had probably been better, if gathered less eagerly, if put on later.

Cock Langford was the son of the auctioneer—

And there never was an inheritance of qualities like it. He would have made as good an auctioneer as his father; a better could not bo.

Cock Langford, so called, from the other auctioneer Cock, very early in the school discovered great talents for ways and means; and, by private contract, could do business as much and as well as his father.

His exercises were not noted for any excess of merit, or the want of it. He certainly had parts, if they had been put in their proper direction: that was trade. In that he might have been conspicuously useful.

As he was in college, and nothing loath in any occasion that led to notice, in spite of a lisp in his speech, he played Davus in the Phormio; which he opened with singidar absurdity, as the four first words terminate in the letter s, which he, from the imperfection in his speech, could not help mangling.

From the patronage of Lord Orford, Mr. Langford had one of the best livings in Norfolk, £1000 a year; and afterwards, I understand, very well exemplified the useful and honourable duties of a clergyman resident on his benefice.

Hamilton. Every thing is the creature of accident; as that works upon time and place, so are the vicissitudes which follow; vicissitudes that reach through the whole allotment of man, even to the charm of character, and the qualities which produce it.

Physically speaking, human nature can redress itself of climate, can generate warmth in high latitudes, and cold at the equator; but in respect to mind and manners, from the law of latitude there is no appeal. Man, like the plants that grow for him, has a proper sky and soil: with them to flourish, without them to fade; through either kingdom, vegetable and moral, in situations that are aquatic, the alpine nature cannot live.

All this applies to Hamilton wasting himself at Westminster. "Wild nature's vigour working at his root;"

his situation should have been accordingly; where he might have spread wide and struck deep.

With more than boyish aptitudes and abilities, he should not thus have been lost among boys. His incessant intrepidity, his restless curiosity, his undertaking spirit, all indicated early maturity; all should have led to pursuits, if not better, at least of more pith and moment than the mere mechanism of dead language!

This by Hamilton (disdaining as a business what as an amusement perhaps might have delighted him) was deemed a dead letter, and as such, neglected; while he bestowed himself on other mechanism, presenting more material objects to the mind. ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE

Exercises out of school took place of exercises within. Not that like Sackville or Hawkins, he had a ball at every leisure moment in his hand; but, preferably to fives or cricket, he would amuse himself in mechanical pursuits; little in themselves, but great as to what they might have been convertible.

In the fourth form, he produced a red shoe of his own making. And though he never made a pocket watch, and probably might mar many, yet all the interior machinery he knew and could name. The whole movement he took to pieces, and replaced.

The man who is to find out the longitude, cannot have beginnings; better than these. Count Bruhl, since Madge's death, the best watch-maker of his time, did not raise more early wonder.

Besides this, Hamilton was to be found in every daring oddity. Lords Burlington and Kent, in all their rage for porticos, were nothing to him in a rage for pediments.

For often has the morning caught him scaling the high pediments of the school-door, and at peril of Ins life clambering down, opening the door within, before the boy who kept the gate could come with the key. His evenings set upon no less perils; in pranks with gunpowder; in leaping from unusual heights into the Thames. As a practical geographer of London, and Heaven only knows how many miles round it, omniscient Jackson himself could not know more.

All this, surely, was intrinsically right, wrong only in its direction. Had he been sent to Woolwich, he might have come out, if not a rival of the Duke of Richmond, then master of the ordnance, at least a first-rate engineer. In economical arts and improvements, nothing less than national, he might have been the Duke of Bridgewater of Ireland. Had the sea been his profession, Lord Mulgrave might have been less alone in the rare union of science and enterprise.

But all this capability of usefulness and fair fame, was brought to nought by the obstinate absurdity of the people about him; nothing could wean them from Westminster. His grandfather Roan, or Rohan, an old man who saved much money in Rathbone-place, and spent but little of it every evening at Slaughter's coffee-house, holding out large promise to property, so became absolute; and absolute nonsense was his conduct to his grandson. He persevered in the school; where, if a boy disaffects book-knowledge, his books are only bought and sold. And after Westminster, when the old man died, as if solicitous that every thing about his grave, but poppy and mandragora, should grow downwards, his will declared his grandson the heir, but not to inherit till he graduated at Cambridge.

To Cambridge therefore he went; where having pursued his studies, as it is called, in a ratio inverse and descending, he might have gone on from bad to worse; and so, as many do, putting a grave face upon it, he might have had his degree. But his animal spirits, and love of bustle, could not go off thus undistinguished; and so, after coolly attempting to throw a tutor into the Cam—after shaking all Cambridge from its propriety by a night's frolic, in which he climbed the sign-posts, and changed the principal signs, he was rusticated; till the good-humour of the university returning, he was re-admitted, and enabled to satisfy his grandfather's will!

After that, he behaved with much gallantry in America; and with good address in that very disagreeable affair, the contested marriage of his sister with Mr. Beresford the clergyman.

Indeed, through the intercourse of private life he was very amiable. The same suavity of speech, courteous attentions, and general good-nature, he had when a boy, continued and improved: good qualities the more to be prized, as the less probable, from his bold and eager temper, from the turbulence of his wishes, and the hurry of his pursuits.

Jekyl had in part, when a boy, the same happy qualities which afterwards distinguished him so entirely: in his economy of time, in his arts of arranging life, and distributing it exactly, between what was pleasant and what was grave.

With vigorous powers and fair pursuits, the doing one thing at a time is the mode to do every thing. Had Jekyl no other excellence than this, I could not be surprised when he became attorney-general.

"When you got into the place of your ancestor, Sir Joseph," said the tutor of Jekyl to him, "let this be your motto:

"Jekyl," said Mrs. Hobart one day, struck with the same address and exactness, "do you know, if you were a painter, Poussin would be nothing to you in the balance of a scene."

Several of his English exercises, and his verses, will not easily be forgotten. And it will be remembered also, in a laughable way, that he was as mischievous as a gentleman need be; the mobbing a vulgar, the hoaxing a quiz, all the dialect of the Thames below Chelsea-reach, and the whole reach of every thing, pleasant but wrong, which the school statutes put out of reach, but what are the practice of the wits, and of every gentleman who would live by the statutes. All these were among Jekyl's early peculiarities, and raised his fame very high for spirit and cleverness.

He was very popular among all the boys of his time. And he had a knack yet more gratifying, of recommending himself to the sisters and cousins of the boys he visited.

And he well held up in theory what he afterwards exemplified in fact. For in one of the best themes of the time on this subject,

he was much distinguished.

"But the grave has closed upon most of the gay spirits of my earlier time," said Crony; "and I alone remain the sad historian. Yonder porch leads to the dormitory and school-room.{15}

What a cloud of recollections, studded with bright and variegated lights, passes before my inward vision! Stars of eminence in every branch of learning, science, and public duties, who received their education within those walls; old Westminsters, whose fame will last as long as old England's records, and who shall doubt that will be to the end of time? Here grew into manhood and renown the Lord Burleigh, King, Bishop of London, the poet Cowley, the great Dryden, Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, Dr. South, Matthew Prior, the tragedian Rowe, Bishop Hooper, Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Friend, the physician, King, Archbishop of Dublin, the philosopher Locke, Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, Bourne, the Latin poet, Hawkins Browne, Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery, Carteret, Earl of Granville, Charles Churchill, the English satirist, Frank Nicholls, the anatomist, Gibbon, the historian, George Colman, Bonnel Thornton, the great Earl of Mansfield, Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, Richard Cumberland, the poet Cowper. These are only a few of the great names which occur to me at this moment; but here is enough to immortalize the memory of the old Westminsters."