On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
to Speak as freely on this subject as upon others . I am confessing myself ; and , be it remembered , that if I speak those truths , which sicken by their egotism and self-conceit , ( the egotism ought not to sicken , I profess it , ) I have as freely told those things which brand me with infamy ; and I shall continue to give myself the whip , and pour the vials of scorn on my own head . I discovered my rapidity
of thought very early , by comparison and contention with others . I did those things almost & Vimprovise , which were to them matters of toil , or , at least , seemed to be so , for hours and sometimes days . I had finished while they were beginning ; or , if I began when they were ending , I was ready first . Doubtless they were more correct—but in .
the matter of theme writing , ( as it was called , ) for instance , mine was ever the one selected to be read aloud by the master . Yet I was ftconrged oftener than any other boy ; my perceptions were not quickened by that process . This statement surely is no boasting ; all was done then as it is now by roe , whatever it may be , ( except a formal f how-d ' ye-do note / or any thing ceremonial , ) currente calamo .
This rapidity is fatal to my hopes of author reputation ; the critic will catch me tripping . Of this I am fully conscious ; and of the thousand flashes and flushes of thought , with which I have endeavoured to impress paper , I have never yet dared to meet a reader ' s eye in print , except in a few scraps , which nobody has read , and I
have forgotten . I have burnt manuscript * poetry *—bless the mark ! fragments , essays , &c . which would have made twenty octavo volumes , of three or four hundred pages each . And now should not have ventured , bat from an imperative cause , and in the reliance that the many remarkable adventures and extraordinary facts of which I shall speak , will keep the reader ' s eye in dilation .
At this school I remained till my fifteenth year . Reading , writing , and arithmetic limited the aspirings of my education . The words of Undley Murray I had been compelled to commit to memory , and with as much advantage as words which we do not understand commonly yield . I could score a few lines , curves , and angles , without knowing how to apply them to any purpose of utility . I was naturally practical at tangents ; skeleton maps I carried engraved in ray brain ; I knew that William Rufus succeeded conquering William ; that a
man named Virgil had written one book of poetry , and Homer another , and of their contents I was quite innocent , both in translation and original ; that Milton had written Paradise L * ost , which I tried to read , but could not ; I was tired at the end of every six lines ; I wa 9 ignorant that anybody had written plays , though I spouted some lines occasionally , which rattled well , and I liked them ; I learnt from my father afterwards , that they were composed by one William
Shakspears , who was born and buried at Stratford-on-Avon , ( I knew where Stratford-on-A von was , ) and had a singular epitaph on his tomb-sfrorre . These , with some private lectures from my father , ( to which I may have occasion to alhide hereafter , for he was anything but conventional in his philosophy , ) were all the properties of education which poverty would permit me to acquire in due form ; but I had stolen much more than either my natural tutor or my intellectual trimmer was aware . I had poached on grounds which the latter would ***** logged me , I dafe say , for looking at ; while the former would
Untitled Article
Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . 3 S 5
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1833, page 335, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2614/page/47/
-