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JOHN GAY AT BARNSTAPLE.

This lively poet, whose charming Fables are the best we possess, was descended from an old Devonshire family, and was born at Barnstaple, in 1688, as proved by some MS. found in the secret drawer of an arm-chair which once belonged to the poet. He was educated at the grammar-school of his native town, and had for his master one Mr. Luck, who probably fostered though he could not create in his pupil a taste for poetry, by a volume of Latin and English poems, which he published before he retired from the mastership of the school. When Gay quitted it, his father being in reduced circumstances, the young poet was bound apprentice to a silk-mercer in the Strand, London; but he disliked this employment, and obtained his discharge from his master. His joy at this change may be traced in the following passage from his Rural Sports, which he, in 1711, dedicated to Mr. Pope, and thus established an acquaintance which ripened into a lasting friendship:

But I, who ne'er was blessed by Fortune's hand,
Nor brightened ploughshares in paternal land;
Long in the noisy town have been immured,
Respired its smoke, and all its cares endured.
Fatigued at last, a calm retreat I chose,
And soothed my harassed mind with sweet repose,
Where fields, and shades, and the refreshing clime,
Inspire the sylvan song, and prompt my rhyme.

Gay's Fables,* written in 1726, were designed for the special improvement of the young Duke of Cumberland; but the poet was meanly rewarded, and his fable of The Hare with many Friends is, doubtless, drawn from Gay's own experience. He was equally beloved by Swift and Pope: the former called Gay his "dear friend;" and the latter characterized him as

Of manners gentle, of affections mild,

In wit a man, simplicity a child.

HOW EDMUND STONE TAUGHT HIMSELF MATHEMATICS.

Stone was born about the year 1700; his father was gardener to the Duke of Argyle, who, walking one day in his garden, observed a Latin copy of Newton's Principia lying on the grass, and thinking it had been brought from his own library, called some one to carry it back to its place. Upon this, Stone, who was then in his eighteenth year, claimed the book as his own. "Yours!" replied the Duke; "do you understand geometry, Latin, and Newton ?" "I know a little of them," replied the

*The Fables of Gay were beautifully illustrated by William Harvey, in 1854, and published with a Memoir and Notes by Octavius Freire Owen, M.A., F.S.A.

young man. The Duke was surprised; and, having a taste for the sciences, conversed with the young mathematician, and was astonished at the force, the accuracy, and the candor of his answers. "But how," said the Duke, "came you by the knowledge of all these things?" Stone replied: "A servant taught me ten years since to read. Does one need to know anything more than the twenty-four letters in order to learn everything else that one wishes?" The Duke's curiosity redoubled: he sat down on a bank, and requested a detail of the whole process by which he had become so learned.

"I first learned to read," said Stone; "the masons were then at work upon your house. I approached them one day, and observed that the architect used a rule and compasses, and that he made calculations. I inquired what might be the meaning and the use of these things, and I was informed that there was a science called arithmetic. I purchased a book of arithmetic, and I learned it. I was told there was another science called geometry; I bought the necessary books and I learned geometry. By reading, I found that there were good books of these two sciences in Latin; I bought a dictionary, and I learned Latin. I understood also that there were good books of the same kind in French; I bought a dictionary, and I learned French. And this, my Lord, is what I have done: it seems to me that we may learn everything when we know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet."

Under the patronage of the Duke of Argyle, Stone, some years afterward, published in London a Treatise on Mathematical Instruments, and a Mathematical Dictionary, was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society, and became a distinguished man of science.

JOHN WESLEY AT THE CHARTER-HOUSE AND OXFORD.

The founder of the Methodists, John Wesley, was the second, or the second who grew up to manhood, of the sons of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, of Epworth, Lincolnshire, and was born there in (O.S.) 1703.* When in his sixth year, he nearly lost his life in a fire which consumed his father's parsonage; and John remembered this providential deliverance through life with the

* Samuel, the eldest son, was first under-master of Westminster School afterward head of a free-school at Tiverton. The third son, Charles, was at Westminster School, when an Irish gentleman, Garrett Wellesly (or Wesley), Esq., of Dunganon, M.P., considering the boy of his own family, offered to make him his heir if he would consent to go with him to Ireland. The young man, who was just chosen student of Christchurch from Westminster School, preferred his projects there to a life of dependence on a stranger; and the favor of his namesake was in consequence transferred, and his fortune bequethed, to Richard, second son of Sir Henry Colley, who assumed the name of Wellesley, was afterward Earl of Mornington, and was grandfather of the Marquis Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington.

deepest gratitude. In reference to it, he had a house in flames engraved as an emblem under one of his portraits, with these words for the motto, "Is not this a brand plucked out of the burning?" Peculiar care was taken of his religious education by his mother, which, with the habitual and fervent piety of both his parents, and his own surprising preservation, at an age when he was perfectly capable of remembering all the circumstances, combined to foster in the child that disposition which afterward developed itself with such force, and produced such important effects.

At an early age John was sent to the Charter-house, where he suffered under the tyranny which the elder boys were permitted to exercise. The boys of the higher forms were then in the practice of taking their portion of meat from the younger ones, by the law of the strongest; and during great part of the time that Wesley remained there, a small daily portion of bread was his only food. He strictly performed an injunction of his father's, that he should run round the Charter-house green three times every morning. Here, for his quietness, regularity, and application he became a favorite with the master, Dr. Walker; and through life he retained so great a predilection for the place, that on his annual visit to London, he made it a custom to walk through the scene of his boyhood.

At the age of seventeen, Wesley proceeded to Christchurch, Oxford. He had previously acquired some knowledge of Hebrew under his brother Samuel's tuition. At college he continued his studies with all diligence, and was noticed there for his attainments, and especially for his skill in logic; no man, indeed, was ever more dextrous in the art of reasoning. He was no inexpert versifier, and at one time seemed likely to have found his vent in poetry. When he was an under-graduate, his manners were free and cheerful; and his active disposition displayed itself in wit and vivacity. As, however, he was destined by the wishes of his family, and the situation which he held in the university, to become a candidate for orders, his parents directed his attention to the studies which concerned his profession, and more particularly to books of a devotional spirit. Among the works which he read in this preparation were the famous treatise De Imitatione Christi, ascribed to Thomas à Kempis; but the impression which this writer failed to make, was produced by the work of a far more powerful intellect, and an imagination infinitely more fervent-Jeremy Taylor's Rules of Holy Living and Dying. Wesley now got rid of all his acquaintances whose conversation he did not think likely to promote his spiritual improvement. In 1725, he was ordained; and in the following spring was elected to a fellowship at Lincoln College.

From this time Wesley began to keep a diary, in which he conveys a lively picture of himself; registering not only his proceedings, but his thoughts, his studies, and his remarks upon men and books, and miscellaneous subjects, with a vivacity which characterized him to the last. He was next apppointed Moderator of the Logical Disputations and Greek Lecturer. He now formed for himself a scheme of studies: Mondays and Tuesdays were allotted for the classics; Wednesdays to logic and ethics; Thursdays to Hebrew and Arabic; Fridays to metaphysics and natural philosophy; Saturdays to oratory and poetry, but chiefly to composition in those arts; and the Sabbath to divinity. It appears by his diary, also, that he gave great attention to mathematics. Full of business as he now was, he found time for writing by rising an hour earlier in the morning, and going into company an hour later in the evening. At the desire of his father, he next resided at Wroote, one of his livings; he officiated there for two years as his curate, and obtained priests' orders.

He now returned to take up his abode at Lincoln College, became a tutor there, and presided as Moderator at the Disputations. At this time a decided color was given to Wesley's destiny, and the foundation laid of Methodism. During his absence at Wroote, his younger brother, Charles, had drawn together in Oxford a small society of young men, of similar views, who received the sacrament weekly at St. Mary's, and assembled daily in each other's rooms, for the purpose of prayer and study. John was invited to join their party, and his superior age, though he too was very young, together with his station in the University, his character for learning, and above all, his being in priests' orders, combined to give him the direction of the little brotherhood. Nothing was further from his thoughts, or theirs, than the idea of separation from the church: they were, indeed, completely high church in their principles and practice. John Wesley added a remarkable plainness of dress, and an unusual manner of wearing his long flaxen hair; and the name of Methodists (a term not taken, as is generally supposed, from the ancient school of physicians so called, but from a religious sect among the puritans of the seventeenth century) was the least offensive term applied to them. They were in no way molested by the public authorities, either of the University or the Church of England; but their character for unusual piety conciliated the good-will of their ecclesiastical superiors till some of them excited opposition by doctrines decidedly at variance with the prevailing opinions of the church.

We have now sketched the school and college life of John

Wesley, unquestionably a man of very eminent talents and acquirements.

His genius, naturally clear and vivid, had been developed and matured during his residence at Oxford, by an unremitting attention to the studies af the place. His industry and management of time few have equaled. He always rose, for above fifty years together, at four in the morning He read even while on horseback; and during the latter part of his life, when his long journeys were made in a carriage, he boasted that he had generally from ten to twelve hours in the day which he could devote to study and composition. Accordingly, besides the ancient languages, he was competently skilled in many of the tongues of modern Europe, and his journals display throughout a remarkable and increasing familiarity with the general reading, the poetry, and the ephemeral productions of his day. -Abridged from the Quarterly Review, No. 47.

LORD MANSFIELD AT WESTMINSTER.

"Of all the illustrious characters" (says the Queen's Scholars' List) "who have received their education at Westminster, there is perhaps none that holds out a brighter example for the imitation of youth than the accomplished lawyer and statesman, William Murray." He was born at Perth in 1704; at the age of three, was removed to London; and in 1719, was admitted a King's Scholar at Westminster. Here he distinguished himself, not so much in his poetry as in his other exercises, especially in his declamation, prognosticating that eloquence which was matured at the bar, and in both Houses of Parliament. He was elected to Oxford in 1723, and had taken his degree of B.A. in 1727, when he wrote a poem on the Death of George I. and Accession of George II., which won his first prize given on the occasion. He took his degree of M.A. in 1730, and in the following year was called to the bar by the Society of Lincoln's Inn, of which he had been a student since 1724. In early life he associated much with "the men of wit about town." Dr. Johnson said of him that "when he first came to town, he drank champagne with the wits." He was intimate with Pope:

"How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast."

Dunciad, iv. 169.

As a lawyer, he was self-taught, and had never gone through the process of a special pleader's or conveyancer's office. He studied oratory, as well at Oxford as in debating-clubs in London. Pope, in the Epistle dedicated to him, says:

"Grac'd as thou art with all the power of words,
So known, so honor'd, in the house of Lords."

Lord Mansfield's attachment to Westminster continued through life; and as long as his strength would permit him, he attended regularly the plays and annual meetings, which have for so many years been venerated customs of the school. At the Election dinner of 1793, his death was feelingly lamented, in some elegant verses written by Dean Vincent, and spoken by the Captain, Dr. Kidd.

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