Apparently he did not much profit by it, for she confessed he was one of
the dullest boys she had ever dealt with, insomuch that she had sometimes
doubted whether it was possible to make anything of him: a common case with
imaginative children, who are apt to be beguiled from the dry abstractions
of elementary study by the picturings of the fancy.
At six years of age he passed into the hands of the village schoolmaster,
one Thomas (or, as he was commonly and irreverently named, Paddy) Byrne, a
capital tutor for a poet. He had been educated for a pedagogue, but had
enlisted in the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time,
and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the
return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, he resumed the
ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy. Goldsmith is supposed to
have had him and his school in view in the following sketch in his Deserted
Village:
"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd:
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew,
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around--
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29