Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/261

Rh five years, and the slender stock of classical learning he there acquired, received little increase from study in after life. At school he was noted for conceit, carelessness, and quickness. He once received punishment for a bad theme, while his master, at the same time, announced that in parts it far exceeded in merit any that his competitors had produced. At the coronation of King James II. the school petitioned for a holiday; the request was granted, provided an ode were first composed on the event. The boys were disheartened, but Cibber undertook the task and completed it in half an hour. His vanity, however, was so offensive on the occasion, that his schoolfellows excluded him from a pastime in which he was most desirous to participate.

In 1687 his father took him from school, and sent him to stand at the election of scholars at Winchester, where, through the descent on the mother's side from the founder, William of Wykeham, he trusted to have obtained his admittance. Good easy man! His soul must have been too much absorbed in his art, to have had time to contemplate the peculiarities of English manners. "Had he," says Cibber, "tacked a direction to my back and sent me by the carrier to the mayor of the town, to be chosen Member of Parliament there, I might have had just as much chance to have succeeded in the one as the other." A friendless boy presenting himself, without interest or recommendations, at the door of any of our munificent foundations for indigent scholars, would not be likely to excite much consideration. This, however, would result from the coldness and pride of our national character, and if there was blame on this occasion it lay not with the institution but with the father.

The refusal taught him a lesson, and the second son profited by the mishap of the elder. He exerted himself; the present of a statue of the founder was convincing