Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/137

Rh There is one young lord in this town, who, by an unexampled piece of good fortune, was miraculously snatched out of the gulf of ignorance, confined to a publick school for a due term of years, well whipped when he deserved it, clad no better than his comrades, and always their playfellow on the same foot, had no precedence in the school, but what was given him by his merit, and lost it whenever he was negligent. It is well known, how many mutinies were bred at this unprecedented treatment, what complaints among his relations, and other great ones of both sexes; that his stockings with silver clocks were ravished from him; that he wore his own hair: that his dress was undistinguished; that he was not fit to appear at a ball or assembly, nor suffered to go to either: and it was with the utmost difficulty, that he became qualified for his present removal, where he may probably be farther persecuted, and possibly with success, if the firmness of a very worthy governor, and his own good dispositions will not preserve him. I confess, I cannot but wish, he may go on in the way he began; because I have a curiosity to know by so singular an experiment, whether truth, honour, justice, temperance, courage, and good sense, acquired by a school and college education, may not produce a very tolerable lad, although he should happen to fail in one or two of those accomplishments, which, in the general vogue, are held so important to the finishing of a gentleman.

It is true, I have knowai an academical education to have been exploded in publick assemblies; and . V.