The English Spy, page 79 by Bernard Blackmantle
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s of questions, and which none could defend better. This goes, however, only to the powers of his head; in those of the heart no one, and in the best ~85~~ and tenderest qualities of it, ever stood better. He was liked universally, and should be so; for no man was ever more meritorious for being good, as he who had all the abilities which sometimes make a man otherwise.
In the progress of life mind changes often, and body almost always. Both these rules, however, he lived to contradict; for his talents and his qualities retained their virtue; and when a boy he was as tall as when a man, and apparently the same.
Capel Loft. In the language of Eton the word gig comprehended all that was ridiculous, all that was to be laughed at, and plagued to death; and of all gigs that was, or ever will be, this gentleman, while a boy, was the greatest.
He was like nothing, "in the heavens above, or the waters under the earth;" and therefore he was surrounded by a mob of boys whenever he appeared. These days of popularity were not pleasant. Luckily, however, for himself, he found some refuge from persecution in his scholarship. This scholarship was much above the rate, and out of the manner of common boys.
As a poet, he possessed fluency and facility, but not the strongest imagination. As a classic, he was admirable; and his prose themes upon different subjects displayed an acquaintance with the Latin idiom and phraseology seldom acquired even by scholastic life, and the practice of later years. Beyond this, he read much of everything that appeared, knew every thing, and was acquainted with every better publication of the times.
Even then he studied law, politics, divinity; and could have written well upon those subjects.
These talents have served him since more effectually than they did then; more as man than boy:
For at school he was a kind of Gray Beard: he neither ran, played, jumped, swam, or fought, as ~86~~ other boys do. The descriptions of puerile years, so beautifully giv