PKOFKSSOB WHITE. 



265 



sionally less imperious ; but, after 

 he retired to Ireland, he gave way 

 without restraint to the native ar- 

 rogance of his character ; and, ac- 

 cordingly, confined himself almost 

 entirely to the society of a few easy- 

 tempered persons, who had no 

 talents or pretensions to come in 

 competition with his ; and who, for 

 the honour of his acquaintance, were 

 willing to submit to the dominion 

 he usurped. A singular contrast to 

 the rudeness and arrogance of this 

 behaviour to his friends and depen- 

 dents, is afforded by the instances 

 of extravagant adulation and base 

 humility, which occur in his ad- 

 dresses to those upon whom his 

 fortune depended. (Jeffrey.) 



PORSON. 



Professor Person being once at a 

 dinner-party where the conversation 

 turned upou Captain Cook and his 

 celebrated voyages round the world, 

 an ignorant person, in order to contri- 

 bute his mite towards the social in- 

 tercourse, asked him, " Pray, was 

 Cook killed on his first voyage ? " 

 " I believe he was, " answered Porsou, 

 " though he did not mind it much, 

 but immediately entered on a 

 second." 



Porson said of a prospect shown 

 to him, that it put him in mind oi 

 a fellowship a long, dreary walk 

 with a church at the end of it. 



POPULAR TEACHING. 



Eulwer, in his England and the 

 English, hits off the literary charla- 

 tans most aptly : 



" At present a popular instructor 

 is very much like a certain mastei 

 in Italian, who has thriven prodi- 

 giously upon a new experiment on 

 his pupils. 



" J was a clever fellow, am' 



full of knowledge which nobody 

 wanted to know. After seeing him 

 in rags for some years, I met hin 

 the other day most sprucely attired 

 and with the complacent and san 



guine air of a prosperous gentle- 

 man. 



' : ' I am glad to see, my dear sir,' 

 laid I, ' that the world wags well 

 with you.' 



u ' It does.' 



" ' Doubtless your books sell fa- 

 mously.' 



" ' Bah, no bookseller will buy 

 .hem. No, sir, I have hit on a 

 )etter metier than that of writing 

 jooks. I arn giving lessons in Italian.' 



" ' Italian ! why, I thought when 



last saw you, that you told me 

 [talian was the very language yon 

 mew nothing about.' 



" ' Nor did I, sir ; but as soon as 

 I had procured scholars, I began to 

 teach myself. I bought a dictionary. 

 I learnt that lesson in the morning 

 which I taught my pupils at noon. 

 I found I was more familiar and ex- 

 planatory, thus fresh from knowing 

 little, than if I. had been confused and 

 over-deep by knowing much. I am 

 a most popular teacher, sir ; and my 

 whole art consists in being just one 

 lesson in advance of my scholars.' 



PROFESSOR WHITE. 



White was a very extraordinary 

 man, of great profundity as an Asi- 

 atic linguist. He was first disco- 

 vered by the late Dean Tucker, work- 

 ing as an apprentice to a poor 

 weaver, in a village either in Glou- 

 cestershire or Somersetshire. At 

 this village, on a certain day, was to 

 be a dinner-party. The dean, stroll- 

 ing about before dinner, chanced to 

 go into a poor weaver's shop. He 

 took up a dirty, tattered Greek 

 Testament. "How comes thishcre? 

 who reads this book ? " " Sir, my 

 lad is always poring over such books." 

 On speaking to the lad, he found 

 him well versed in Greek and Latin. 

 By appointment he waited upou ihe 

 dean in the afternoou,who introduced 

 him to the company. A collection 

 was made for him. Tucker under- 

 took the care of him, put him to 

 school at Gloucester, and from thenco 



