his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him; the mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence, yea, the world and all that dwell therein." And is this the state, the wretched state, to which thy wayward and malignant disposition endeavoured to reduce a fellow-creature?" O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord ?"

ESSAY XVIII.

NARRATIVE CONTINUED.

«IN this new scene I found myself very miserable; the amazing, and unblushing, and audacious iniquity, which I saw, wherever I turned myself, shocked and appalled me, who had from my earliest years been

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taught the great lessons of religion and morality, both by precept and example, by my father and my mother. And, although I had been ground down, at my tyrant's pandemonium, into a sly, and suspicious, anddirty, and lying knave; yet, I had neither learned, nor been accustomed to hear the horrid and dreadful oaths, and imprecations, and curses, and blasphemous effusions, which now resounded and reechoed from every quarter. I had been taught at home to speak clearly, audibly, and without hesitation; I had been instructed to behave with civility, with openness, and with integrity, and with that degree of civil courage, without which all attainments are useless, and the highest talents buried in oblivion; but I was now, an awkward, boorish, slovenly, cowardly, shabby little rascal, with a snuffling speech, a downcast, vagabond countenance, and an ungainly, snivelling deportment. From this state I was soon transformed, by malignant ridicule, by ceaseless blows, and unremitting persecution, into an impudent, saucy, swearing, hardened, abandoned, iniquitous, shameless,

extravagant, unprincipled animal, whose only aim and scope was how to elude the vigilant tyranny of my oppressors; to exercise my unprovoked vengeance on the very few little defenceless children, to whom I was superior in manual prowess; and to swindle my excellent, but unsuspecting father out of continual sums of money, to supply the expenses incurred by my heedless squandering. This, indeed, was the game played by all, or nearly all; I was only an individual holding a single hand of cards, amidst numerous other gamblers. But, before I proceed further in my narrative, it may not be amiss to give a rapid sketch of the internal economy and organization of the college. Within the walls resides a .............., who is the lord paramount over the fellows, the masters, and the boys; he does not attend in the school-room, but travels through the kingdom, at a certain period of the year, to collect the rents from the enormous estates belonging to this monastic institution; he is seen, occasionally, at the college chapel, is the person to whom any great complaints are referred, and from

whose decision there is no appeal, save in some few extreme cases, when a chamber of electors is held, consisting of the two

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................ examiners, some fellows, and the head master; for all this he receives an ample salary, with a good house, and abundant appendages, as servants, horses, wine, food, &c. The fellows are kept here, for the same purpose as at other colleges in England, to eat, to drink, to sleep, and to get fat.

• Numerus, et fruges consumere nati, Sponsi, nebulones, Aleinoique

<In cute curanda plus æquo operata senectus,

• Cui pulchrum foret in medios dormire dies, et

A cyathis Bacchi cessantem ducere somnum."

There are two masters, one with a very a-, bundant, the other with a competent salary; but both their revenues are considerably augmented by extorting from each boy ten guineas yearly, under the soft and specious appellation of gratuity as fees: a mode of operation peculiarly consist

ent and proper in an academy, professedly instituted as a charity school, for the benefit of those children, whose parents, being in indigent circumstances, could not afford to give them a liberal education. The business of the under master was to go early in the morning to chapel, where all the boys were expected to be assembled, and hear some prayers mumbled over by one of the chaplains; then to be in the school-room at half past seven, to hear the boys say their tasks, and flagellate the culprits; no contemptible exercitation, as the average number was generally between twenty and thirty each morning. At half past nine he left the school, and reentered it at eleven; left it at twelve; visited it again at half past two, performed the office of flagellation, and finally quitted it at half past five; at eight in the evening went to chapel, where the boys were assembled to hear some prayers hurried over by one of their school-fellows, and a roll-call of their own names. Tues days and Thursdays, not being school-days, he had then, instead of hearing lessons, to go twice each day to