After an attack of confluent small-pox, which scarred him for
life, Oliver was transferred from the care of this not-uncongenial
preceptor to a school at Elphin. From Elphin he passed to Athlone; from
Athlone to Edgeworthstown, where he remained until he was thirteen or
fourteen years of age. The accounts of these early days are
contradictory. By his schoolfellows he seems to have been regarded as
stupid and heavy,--'little better than a fool'; but they admitted that
he was remarkably active and athletic, and that he was an adept in all
boyish sports. At home, notwithstanding a variable disposition, and
occasional fits of depression, he showed to greater advantage. He
scribbled verses early; and sometimes startled those about him by
unexpected 'swallow-flights' of repartee. One of these, an oft-quoted
retort to a musical friend who had likened his awkward antics in a
hornpipe to the dancing of Aesop,--
Heralds! proclaim aloud! all saying,
See 'Aesop' dancing, and his 'monkey' playing,--
reads more like a happily-adapted recollection than the actual impromptu
of a boy of nine.
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