Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/211

Rh but a few weeks before. The controversies which surrounded its birth, and of which indeed it was made the occasion, forbad Dr. Johnson working out a full curriculum at once, and in Mr. Smith's warm concern for his pupils he was loth to have them go thither under the circumstances and away from his tutelage ; though it was alike reasonable for Mr. Martin to desire his sons entered at a college nearer home, the support of which was sought for from every active Churchman. But death soon solved the question for one of the lads : William Thomas Martin, the second son, died after a brief illness on 28th of August, 1754. And on Sunday, i September, the day after the funeral, Mr. Smith preached a sermon in Christ Church " On the Death of a Beloved Pupil," the first of his published discourses. With the sermon there were printed "A Collection of the Tears" of a few young gentlemen who were fellow students of the deceased, in verse, the writers being Francis Hopkinson, Samuel Magaw, Jacob Duche and Paul Jackson, with lines also from Thomas Barton. Hop- kinson's lines open and conclude thus : I call no aid, no muses to inspire, Or teach my breast to feel a poet* s fire ; Your soft expression of a grief sincere, Brings from our soul a sympathetic tear This only truth permits me to disclose, That in your own, you represent my woes ; And sweeter than my song, is your harmonious prose. In an obituary of the young man and a notice of the sermon printed in the Gazette, 5 September it is said : Our Academy has been remarkably happy, in sustaining so few Losses of this kind. For since it was first open' d this is but the second Youth that has died, in more than the Space of four Years : which among several Hundreds that have been constantly educating in it, is uncommon, as it has been long observ' d, in all the Schools and Colleges of Europe, that one out of an Hundred dies one Year with another. Our City was never known, upon the whole, so healthy in the Month of August, as this year, nor have we ever had fewer Deaths * * * As the Preacher seem'd sensibly touch' d with his subject, and was known to have loved the