Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/84

Rh Hugh Peters, Praise God Barebones, or any other notorious Covenanter, could have done no better than these orthodox Churchmen. How could they of the rectitude of his motives in animadverting thus, while such evidence bore him out, the Author felt disquieted at the idea that he was making himself enemies, which few men like, if they can avoid it: when—just as his was going to the press, happening to look into the Rambler, a coincidence in the paper No. 180 drew his attention at once; he was satisfied that the freedom he had used amounted not to a tenth part of the caustic bitterness involved in a quotation from Le Clerc, whose sentiments, Dr. Johnson apparently assimilates with his own, on the moral delinquencies of learned collegians. He hopes, therefore, the Gentlemen of Oxford and Cambridge, if they feel aggrieved, will 'place the saddle on the right horse.'

A wealthy trader of good understanding, having the common ambition to breed his son a scholar, carried him to an university, resolving to use his own judgment in the choice of a tutor. He had been taught, by whatever intelligence, the nearest way to the heart of an academic; and on his arrival entertained all who came about him with such profusion, that the professors were lured by the smell of his table from their books, and flocked round him with all the cringes of awkward complaisance. This eagerness answered the merchant's purpose; he glutted them with delicacies, and softened them with caresses, till he prevailed upon one after another to open his bosom, and make a discovery of his competitions, jealousies, and resentments. Having thus learned each man's character, partly from himself, and partly from his acquaintances, he resolved to find some other education for his son, and went away convinced, that a scholastic life has no other tendency than to vitiate the morals, and contract the understanding.