have had the satisfaction of soundly threshing the brutal pedagogue. I declare, on my honour, were a schoolmaster to in, flict such punishment on a child of mine, I would cudgel him as long as I could stand over him. A child of mine!!!!! Yesa child of mine shall be treated in a different manner: instead of correcting him when he fights, his tutor shall be ordered to give him a crown every battle he delivers, and half-a-guinea if he is victorious in the combat: and should he beat a boy much bigger and older than himself, he shall receive a guinea. Yet at the same time he shall not be encouraged to fight for the sake of the money to be awarded him, but only to resent injuries. Such principles, instilled into him at an early age, I am convinced will teach him, in maturer life, to resent insults

with a proper spirit, but will not by any means dispose him to be quarrelsome, Take two boys of equal age and equal dispositions: let the one be kept under the master's eye and never out of his sight: forbid him positively to fight, and let all those who strike or insult him be punished severely let the other mix with his school-fellows, and, if struck or insulted, resent the injury by instantly delivering battle the former will contract tyrannical and cowardly habits, which will accompany and disgrace him through life; and the latter will be bold and liberal, but by no means more quarrelsome than his neighhours. Such characters as the former have I seen even at Eton;-they were proud, insolent, and cowardly; and have continued so to the present hour, without any alteration but what years have made in them.

From Reading I was sent to the Rev. Mr. Fountain's, at Mary-le-bone; the présent Doctor Fountain was under-master

to his father. This was certainly the best school for little boys that ever was. They were treated with the utmost kindness and attention; and with pro per correction, but only when it appeared to be absolutely necessary. Mrs. Fountain was the best and most attentive of women to the small boys; she had them every morning in her own room, and made them learn their lesson to her, which prepared them before they went into the school-room to the Doctor. She used to coax them to learn by giving them biscuits and milk, and shewing them various other kindnesses. She might rather be considered as a mother than a schoolmistress to the children under her care.

What

ever I learned was from kind and gentle

VOL. I.

C

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treatment; for beating would not go with me. A kind word, and my lesson explained to me, had more effect than all the sticks and rods in Christendom; for I was bold and daring even at that early age.

Before I quit my worthy friends, the Fountains, whom I shall never cease to remember with regard, I must relate a very ludicrous scene between me and the celebrated French tooth-drawer, (or dentist, as I suppose he must now be called;) Monsieur Laudomier, who used to attend at certain times in the course of the year, to examine the boys' teeth, and take out such as were defective. He had drawn out one of mine, which gave me great pain; and wanted to draw another, a ceremony which I did not approve: but the more teeth he drew, the more guineas in his pocket.

Perceiving, however, that 1 was resolute, and would not consent to a repetition of his operation, he endeavoured to play me a trick, by concealing his instrument in his handkerchief. He accordingly prevailed on me to open my mouth, that he might feel with his finger and thumb whether the tooth was loose or not; but the moment he got his thumb on my under jaw, he attempted to hold my mouth open by force, and had nearly fixed the instrument on my tooth; but I gave him a violent kick on the shins, which rather deranged him, and at the same instant caught his thumb fast between my teeth, and gave him a small item to remember me as long as he lived. I then ran off, leaving him jumping about the room, from excessive pain; and I shall probably be believed when I assert that he never