pect; for, at the Michaelmas
term, we had chosen Mr Robert Plan into the vacancy caused by the death
of that easy man, Mr Weezle, which happened a short time before. I know
not what came over me, that Mr Plan was allowed to be chosen, for I never
could abide him; being, as he was, a great stickler for small
particularities, more zealous than discreet, and even more intent to
carry his own point, than to consider the good that might flow from a
more urbane spirit. Not that the man was devoid of ability--few, indeed,
could set forth a more plausible tale; but he was continually meddling,
keeking, and poking, and always taking up a suspicious opinion of every
body's intents and motives but his own. He was, besides, of a retired
and sedentary habit of body; and the vapour of his stomach, as he was
sitting by himself, often mounted into his upper story, and begat, with
his over zealous and meddling imagination, many unsound and fantastical
notions. For all that, however, it must be acknowledged that Mr Plan was
a sincere honest man, only he sometimes lacked the discernment of the
right from the wrong; and the consequence was, that, when in error, he
was even more obstinate than when in the right; for his jealousy of human
nature made him interpret falsely the heat with which his own headstrong
zeal, when in error, was ever very properly resisted.

In nothing, however, did his molesting temper cause so much disturbance,
as when, in the year 1809, the bigging of the new school-house was under
consideration. There was, about that time, a great sough throughout the
country on the subject of education, and it was a fashion to call schools
academies; and out of a delusion rising from the use of that term, to
think it necessary to decry the good plain old places, wherein so many
had learnt those things by which they helped to make the country and
kingdom what it is, and to scheme for the ways and means to raise more
edificial structures and receptacles. None was more infected with his
distemperature than Mr Plan; and accordingly, when he came to the council-
chamber, on the day that the matter of the new school-house was to be
discussed, he brought with him a fine castle in the air, which he pressed
hard upon us; representing, that if we laid out two or three thousand
pounds more than we intended, and built a beautiful academy and got a
rector thereto, with a liberal salary, and other suitable masters,
opulent people at a dist