Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/71

Rh light on the character of Augustus, and, instead of being the hypocrite, he was possibly the convert. Certain it is, that there are few vices which cannot be conquered by wisdom: and yet, melancholy to relate, the instructions of Peter Mac Grawler produced but slender amelioration in the habits of the youthful Paul. That ingenious stripling had, we have already seen, under the tuition of Ranting Rob, mastered the art of reading; nay, he could even construct and link together certain curious pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs. Lobkins were wont graciously to term "writing." So far, then, the way of Mac Grawler was smoothed and prepared.

But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow that the main difficulty is not to learn, but to unlearn; and the mind of Paul was already occupied by a vast number of heterogeneous miscellanies, which stoutly resisted the ingress either of Latin or of virtue. Nothing could wean him from an ominous affection for the history of Richard Turpin: it was to him what, it has been said, the Greek authors should be to the