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    not only construe Horace , but you enter into the spirit of your authors . I shall have great pleasure in making a favourable report of your scholarship . " Then , after a moment ' s silence , and with a little hesitation , the gentleman proceeded— " Pray , sir , at your school did you iearn the metres V * I felt rather uneasy at this question ; but having got through the construing with so much eclat I was emboldened , and fearlessly replied " Mr . did not think metres of much use' '

    * At this reply of mine , I thought at the time , and I have had greater reason to think so since , my examiner felt somewhat relieved , and he replied with great alacrity , — " I am quite of his opinion ; and I believe that at the college where you are going , the same opinion is entertained . Some pedantic individuals have occasionally endeavoured to introduce into our seminaries of learning an attention to these trifles , but good sound sense has got the better of the pedants . Indeed , sir , what can we

    know of the Latin quantity ? We know not how the Romans pronounced their prose , and we are much less likely to know how they pronounced their poetry . " Thereupon the examiner smiled , and I smiled , and the Delphin Horace was laid upon the table , and our conversation , flew off to other topics , and I found that I had passed my examination most triumphantly , and that the learned college was anticipating a valuable addition to its literary reputation in my learned person , ' p . 13—18 . There is doubtless much' excellent fooling amongst Nonconformists on this matter . A dissenting minister must keep school

    to keep Latin , if he have any to keep . He has enough to do to keep himself . Gossiping all the week , and sermonizing all the Sunday , being his office , what can he have to do with ' Tully ' s Offices ? ' Well enough is it if he remember what they are , and hazard no impertinent remarks upon Tully ' s establishment . Very popular preachers , dignified upholders of our colleges and a learned ministry , have sometimes been as far at fault . * Young man , ' said a great pillar of the interest ., ' to a student , during a public examination , ' now conjugate scilicet , which the young man modestly declined . The diploma'd ornament of another denomination was observed to ponder profoundly over the question , 6 How it happened that there was not a Delphin ' edition of the

    Greek classics V At length the oracle responded , Why I suspect that although old Delp hin was a decent Latinist , he was but a poor Grecian . ' But great men in a small way although they be , let us not call out too hastily , ' these be thy gods , O Israel ! ' We may traverse the boundaries of the Establishment , from Dan to Heersheba , without finding' theological tutors more classical , critical , and conscientious than Dr . Pye Smith , amongst the Independents , or Mr . John Kenrick , amongst the Presbyterians . And however much the author may have of reason in his ridicule of the parsonic prosody of Nonconformists , there was a good joke for the whole generation of them in the damnabitur of a bishop . Classical scholarship must wry often rank among the fictitious assumptions of the hi g her classes . The clergy , so far as our

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    The Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister . 871

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1834, page 871, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2640/page/53/