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the no small entertainment of the old gentleman, who often adverted to it afterwards. Dove was there, and in endeavouring to correct my utterance, as I had an ill habit of speaking with my teeth closed, as if indifferent whether I spoke or not, he bawled out, in one of his highest tones, Why don't you speak louder? open your mouth like a Dutchman-say yaw."

Being now, probably, about eight years of age, it was deemed expedient to enter me at the academy, then, as it now continues to be, under the name of a university, the principal seminary in Pennsylvania; and I was accordingly introduced by my father to Mr Kinnersley, the teacher of English and professor of oratory. He was an Anabaptist clergyman, a large venerable looking man, of no great general erudition, though a considerable proficient in electricity ; and who, whether truly or not, has been said to have had a share in certain discoveries in that science, of which Dr Franklin received the whole credit. The task of the younger boys, at least, consisted in learning to read and to write their mother tongue grammatically; and one day in the week (I think Friday) was set apart for the recitation of select passages in poetry and For this purpose, each scholar, in his turn, ascended the stage, and said his speech, as the phrase was. This speech was carefully taught him by his master, both with respect to its pronunciation, and the action deemed suitable to its several parts. Two of these specimens of infantile oratory, to the disturbance of my repose, I had been qualified to exhibit: Family partiality, no doubt, overrated their merit; and hence, my declaiming powers were in a state of such constant requisition, that my orations, like worn-out ditties, became vapid and fatiguing to me, and, consequently, impaired my

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relish for that kind of acquirement. More profit attended my reading. After Esop's Fables, and an abridgment of the Roman History, Telemachus was put. into our hands; and if it be admitted that the human heart may be bettered by instruction, mine, I may aver was benefited by this work of the virtuous Fenelon. While the mild wisdom of Mentor called forth my vene ration, the noble ardour of the youthful hero excited my sympathy and emulation. I took part, like a second friend, in the vicissitudes of his fortune,-I participated in his toils, 1 warmed with his exploits, I wept where he wept, and exulted where he triumphed.

As my lot has been cast in a turbulent period, in a season of civil war and revolution, succeeded by scenes of domestic discord and fury, in all of which I have been compelled to take a part, I deem it of consequence to myself to bespeak toleration for the detail of a schoolboy incident, that may in some degree serve to develope my character. It may equally tend to throw some light on the little world upon whose stage I had now entered. A few days after I had been put under the care of Mr Kinnersley, I was told by my class-mates that it was ne, cessary for me to fight a battle with some one, in order to establish my claim to the honour of being an academy boy; that this could not be dispensed with, and that they would select for me a suitable antagonist, one of my match, whom after school I must fight, or be looked upon as a coward. I must confess that I did not at all relish the proposal. Though possessing a sufficient degree of spirit, or at least irascibility, to defend myself when assaulted, I had never been a boxer. Being of a light and slender make, I was not calculated for the business, nor had I ever been ambitious of being the cock

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of a school. Besides, by the laws of the institution I was now a subject of, fighting was a capital crime; a sort of felony deprived of clergy, whose punishment was not to be averted by the most scholar-like reading. For these reasons, both of which had sufficient weight with me, and the last not the least, as I had never been a wilful transgressor of rules, or callous to the consequences of an infraction of them, I absolutely declined the proposal; although I had too much of that feeling about me which some might call false honour, to represent the case to the master, which would at once have extricated me from my difficulty, and brought down condign punishment on its imposers. Matters thus went on until school was out, when I found that the lists were appointed, and that a certain John Appowen, a lad who, though not quite so tall, yet better set and older than myself, was pitted against me. With increased pertinacity I again refused the combat, and insisted on being permitted to go home unmolested. On quickening my pace for this purpose, my persecutors, with Appowen at their head, followed close at my heels. Upon this I moved faster and faster, until my retreat became a flight too unequivocal and inglorious for a man to relate of himself, had not Homer furnished some apology for the procedure, in making the heroic Hector thrice encircle the walls of Troy, before he could find courage to encounter the implacable Achilles. To cut the story short, my spirit could no longer brook an oppression so intolerable, and, stung to the quick at the term coward which was lavished upon me, I made a halt and faced my pursuers. A combat immediately ensued between Appowen and myself, which for some time was maintained on each side with equal vigour and

determination, when unluckily I received his fist directly in my gullet. The blow for a time depriving me of breath and the power of resistance, victory declared for my adversary, though not without the acknowledgment of the party, that I had at last behaved well, and shown myself not unworthy of the name of an academy boy. Being thus established, I had no more battles imposed upon me, and none that I can recollect of my own provoking; for I have a right to declare, that my general deportment was correct and unoffending, though extremely obstinate and unyielding under a sense of injustice. I gave an early instance of this, in once burning the rod with which my father had corrected me, and upon his finding it out, and correcting me a second time, I declared I would drown myself, and ran towards a creek in a meadow not far off, with such an appearance of determination to execute the threat, that he thought proper to dispatch a servant after me in haste, and upon my being brought back, rather to yield to the violence of my temper, than persist in the attempt to subdue it.

In saying my resistance proceeded from a sense of injustice, I would by no means have it understood that my father had been culpable. I rather suppose, that a too ardent idea of the rights of a child had led me to consider that conduct oppressive, which was merely the effect of a paternal concern for my welfare.

While upon the topic of those early adventures, by which we are initiated into the ways of the world, I may mention a circumstance of another nature, which happened not very long after my arrival in the city. One evening about dusk, I was amusing myself on the pavement before the door, with some marbles; for having never been very strongly incited by a spirit of gamb

ling, I frequently played alone, and even when I had a companion, I generally preferred playing in fun, to speak technically, to playing in earnest. A little, skulking rogue, with whom I had no kind of acquaintance, came up to me, and as he joined me in play with some marbles of his own, he took occasion to observe, that his were too small for him, but as mine, on the contrary, were large and exactly suited to his hand, he proposed an exchange, offering me the odds, first, of two, and then of three for one. Having no disposition to traffic with him, being pleased with my own, and satisfied with their number, I at first objected to his proposal, but he pressed me in so earnest a manner to accommodate him with but a part of mine, that, after some hesitation, I consented. Without giving me time for a resumption of my first determination, he picked up six or eight of my marbles, and throwing me down three or four times the number of his own, the amount of boot being apparently wholly unworthy of calculation, he decamped in a twinkling. Upon gathering up the commodities I had received in such abundance, I found them rather light; and on closer inspection, discovered, that, as they had been but clay in the hands of the potter, so I had been an equally ductile material in the hands of a swindler. These things are but puerilities, and very trifles, it is true, but can it be said that they are irrelative to the objects I set out with? And are they not prototypes of the transactions which the more important scene of man every day exhibits? If swindling and oppression beset us in infancy, does experience warrant us in affirming that the state of manhood is exempt from them?

Might I here be pardoned a brief recognition of the