envy
of the University, and above all, his reputed eccentricity of manners,
created fears that almost palsied my tongue when I approached the hall
to announce my arrival. If my ideas of the person had thus confounded
me, my terrors were doubly increased upon entering his chamber: shelves
groaning with ponderous folios and quartos of the most esteemed Latin
and Greek authors, fragments of Grecian and Roman architecture, were
disposed around the room; on the table lay a copy of Stuart's Athens,
with a portfolio of drawings from Palladio and Vitruvius, and Pozzo's
perspective. In a moment the doctor entered, and, advancing towards me,
seized my hand before I could scarcely articulate my respects. "I am
glad to see you--be seated--you are of Eton, I read, an ancient name
and highly respected here--what works have you been lately reading?" I
immediately ran through the list of our best school classics, at which
I perceived the doctor smiled. "You have been treated, I perceive,
like all who have preceded you: the bigotry of scholastic prejudices is
intolerable. I have been for fifty years labouring to remove the veil,
and have yet contrived ~123~~ to raise only one corner of it. Nothing,"
continued the doctor, "has stinted the growth and hindered the
improvement of sound learning more than a superstitious reverence for
the ancients; by which it is presumed that their works form the summit
of all learning, and that nothing can be added to their discoveries.
Under this absurd and ridiculous prejudice, all the universities of
Europe have laboured for many years, and are only just beginning to see
their error, by the encouragement of natural philosophy. Experimental
learning is the only mode by which the juvenile mind should be trained
and exercised, in order to bring all its faculties to their proper
action: instead of being involved in the mists of antiquity." Can it be
possible, thought I, this is the person of whom my friend Tom gave
such a curious account? Can this be the man who is described as a being
always buried in abstracted thoughtfulness on the architer cural remains
of antiquity, whose opinions are said never to harmonize with those of
other heads of colleges; who is described as eccentric, because he has a
singular veneration for truth, and an utter abhorrence of the dogmas
of scholastic prejudice 1 There are some few characters in the most
elevated situations of life, who possess the amiable secret of attaching
eve