speaking of him to the clergyman. The Rev. Charles Hewitt, curate of the united parishes of Bacton and East Ruston, being a man of much kindness, and being engaged in educating his own family, offered, on finding that the father had made no exaggerated representation of the boy's capacity, to take him under his care, and to give him instruction gratuitously with his own sons. This offer the clerk was but too happy to accept, and accordingly, after young Porson had been with Mr. Summers three years, he came under the tuition of Mr. Hewitt, by whom he was instructed, to some considerable extent, in Latin, and with whom he continued also about three years. As Mr. Hewitt's residence was four miles from East Ruston, the boy used to trudge thither every Monday morning, with a stock of some kind of humble provision for the week, which he spent at the vicarage, and returned to his father's on Saturday afternoon. He seems to have shown some inclination to composition at this period, but not much. "Proofs of a serious turn of thought in his early years are still extant," says Mr. Kidd; "they are in the shape of hymns and grave reflections, but in no respect remarkable except in tracing out the adorable nature of the First Cause." We have made inquiry for some of these pieces, and have been presented by Mr. Siday Hawes, the son of Porson's sister, now residing at Hayes, near Horsham, with the only copy in his possession, written when Porson was about twelve years old. The handwriting is beautiful as copper-plate. On a Moonlight Night. Who can the beauties of the night describe, Then cease, proud man, thy own vain works to prize; If thou thy study unto this should'st turn, A lesson of humility thou'dst learn. R. PORSON excogitavit, Anno Domini Jes. 1771. These lines, proceeding from a boy of that age, of no great reading, indicate some, if not very much, power of thought, and certainly show an ear for the Popian couplet. At nine years of age he had written some verses on the loss of the Peggy, a seventy-four gun ship, lost off Happisburgh in 1768. When Mr. Hewitt gave him a fable of Phædrus to translate into prose, he would sometimes, in preference, turn it into verse. Mr. Hewitt seems to have had many good qualifications for the office of an instructor. He succeeded in educating, on an income, from three small charges, not exceeding two hundred pounds a year, five sons for the university, four of whom became fellows of their respective colleges, and the fifth was expected to obtain a fellowship, but died soon after he had taken his degree. To effect so much with such small means, it * Letter of The Rev. W. Gunn to Dawson Turner; Barker's Parriana, vol. ii. p. 736. may well be supposed that Mr. Hewitt was very economical, and it is yet related, among the people of that neighbourhood, that he has been seen roasting a turnip, like Curius Dentatus, for his supper, and rocking a cradle and reading a book at the same time. Being desirous to advance young Porson in life, Mr. Hewitt spoke of him in high terms to Mr. Norris, a wealthy and benevolent gentleman of Witton Park, in an adjoining parish, who afterwards founded the Norrisian Professorship of Divinity at Cambridge. Mr. Norris expressed his willingness to assist the boy, if his abilities should be found correspondent to Mr. Hewitt's representations, and requested a friend of his, the Rev. Thomas Carthew, incumbent of Woodbridge in Suffolk, to examine him. Mr. Carthew, not being a regularly bred scholar, as he was some years a solicitor before he took orders, declined to undertake the responsibility of pronouncing on Porson's merits, but being acquainted with the Rev. James Lambert, who had been recently appointed Greek professor at Cambridge, asked him to make a thorough investigation of the boy's qualifications. Lambert assented, with conditional offers of further service, and Carthew, in acknowledgment, wrote him a very sensible letter, which well deserves to be made public. "DEAR SIR, Woodbridge, Feb. 26th, 1773. "Your interesting yourself so kindly on behalf of the poor lad whose genius you heard me commend, is not only an act of benevolence towards him, but also a very obliging civility to me, and as such I shall ever acknowledge it. "Immediately on the receipt of your letter I wrote to the lad's friends, and last night I received an answer from my friend Mr. Norris, wherein he expresses his sense of the generosity of your conduct, and directs me to inform you that, after full consideration, he has judged it expedient to send the boy immediately to Cambridge, in order that his abilities may be put to the test by the Professor himself, for, he observes, that these luminaries, like the phenomena in the sky, very often shine only just long enough to excite attention and surprise, and then drop at once into obscurity. If, on examination, his genius shall be found by you to be answerable to those high presages which the partiality of his present instructor has conceived of him, so as to be worthy of a successful recommendation to the Charterhouse, Mr. Norris will be responsible for his expenses there; but if you should think his talents have been overrated, which is not improbable, as his poverty and mean birth may have encouraged a favourable prejudice, Mr. Norris will then direct his kindness towards him on a more humble plan, and more suitable to his rank. "I apprehend the lad will be with you nearly as soon as this letter. "I am, dear Sir, with all possible esteem and respect, "Your most obedient servant, "THOMAS CARTHEW." P.S. "You will find the lad rather an unwinning cub than otherwise, but you will, I doubt not, make allowance for the awkwardness of his manners." About the same time Mr. Hewitt wrote to Lambert, relating what Porson had read with him while under his tuition. "As I have had the orderly and good boy under my care for almost two years, I think it proper to tell you how he has been employed during that time. He had read some of Corderius' Colloquies' when he first came, and having two little boys of my own who were reading Erasmus, I put him 6 to them, the greatest part of whose Colloquies' they read together, and translated into English, which last task the boy performed in about half the time they could. I ordered him to lay by his Erasmus, and endeavour to turn his English into Latin, which he did so accurately that he varied but little from his author either in order or words. He is now doing the same by Cæsar's Commentaries.' When he first began Ovid, I expected some little trouble in teaching him to scan, but, to my great surprise, found none, and I do not remember that he ever read six lines false as to quantity through his whole Metamorphoses.' He has read all Terence, the Eclogues,' and Georgics' of Virgil, and is got into the 'Eneid.' "Perhaps you may wonder that I have said nothing of Greek hitherto, but my method (perhaps a wrong one) is to have lads pretty well versed in Latin first, and, as my own boys are by no means equal to him, I was obliged to defer it the longer. I have not time to attend to the boy by himself, otherwise I doubt not but he might have made a considerable progress in that language. What I do for him is gratis, otherwise I should think myself guilty of injustice. They are now getting the Greek verbs, and will begin the Greek Testament shortly. This boy and one of my own generally employ an hour or two every day in mathematics, in which science Porson had made such proficiency before he came to me as to be able to solve questions out of the 'Ladies' Diary,' to the great astonishment of a very able mathematician in these parts. To say anything more about the lad is needless, as you will try him yourself, and I heartily wish you may find him worthy of your recommendation, and your success herein will be a great pleasure and satisfaction to, "Sir, your most obedient and very humble servant, "T. HEWITT, "Of Bacton, near North Walsham, Norfolk." Before this letter was written, a translation of a stanza of Beattie's "Minstrel," done by Porson, had been |