mistakes destroyed all
his dignity and rendered it impossible to maintain any discipline
in the class. He would break out occasionally in despair,
"Young zhentlemen, you do not respect me and I have not given
you any reason to." A usual punishment for misconduct in those
days was to deduct a certain number of the marks which determined
rank from the scale of the offending student. M. Viau used
to hold over us this threat, which, I believe, he never executed,
"Young zhentlemen, I shall be obliged to deduce from you."

He was followed by the Comte de la Porte, a gentleman in bearing
and of a good deal of dignity. The Count was asked one day
by Nat Perry, a member of the class from New Hampshire who
was very proud of his native State and always boasting of
the exploits in war and peace of the people of New Hampshire,
what sort of a French scholar M. Viau, his predecessor, was.
The Count replied: "He was not a fit teacher for young gentlemen.
He was an ignorant person from the Provinces. He did not
have the Parisian accent. He did not know the French language
in its purity. It would be as if somebody were to undertake
to teach English who came from New Hampshire or some such
place." The Count said this in entire innocence. It was
received with a roar of laughter by the class, and the indignation
and wrath of Perry may well be imagined.

Another instructor in modern languages was Dr. Bachi. He
was a very accomplished gentleman. His translations of Italian
poetry, especially of Dante and Tasso, were exquisite. It
was like hearing a sweet and soft music to hear him read his
beloved poets, and he had a singular gift of getting hold
of the most sweet and mellifluous English words for his rendering.
"And he did open his mouth, and from it there did come out
words sweeter than honey." He once translated to us a passage
in the Inferno where the damned are suspended, head downwards,
with the burning flames resting upon the soles of their feet.
"Ah," exclaimed Bachi, "they do curl up their toes."

My class is not one of the very famous classes of the College.
Certainly it does not equal the class of 1802 or the class
of 1829. But I think it was, on the whole, very considerably
above the average. In it were several persons who became
eminent scholars and teachers, and some who have been eminent
in other walks of life. I think, on the whole, its two most
distinguished members, entitled to hold a greater place th