Coming, as they do, from his own pen, it is needless to add, that they
afford the liveliest and best records of this period that can be
furnished.
"Till I was eighteen years old (odd as it may seem) I had never read a
review. But while at Harrow, my general information was so great on
modern topics as to induce a suspicion that I could only collect so
much information from _Reviews_, because I was never _seen_ reading,
but always idle, and in mischief, or at play. The truth is, that I
read eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had read all
sorts of reading since I was five years old, and yet never _met_ with
a Review, which is the only reason I know of why I should not have
read them. But it is true; for I remember when Hunter and Curzon, in
1804, told me this opinion at Harrow, I made them laugh by my
ludicrous astonishment in asking them '_What is_ a Review?' To be
sure, they were then less common. In three years more, I was better
acquainted with that same; but the first I ever read was in 1806-7.
"At school I was (as I have said) remarked for the extent and
readiness of my _general_ information; but in all other respects idle,
capable of great sudden exertions, (such as thirty or forty Greek
hexa-meters, of course with such prosody as it pleased God,) but of
few continuous drudgeries. My qualities were much more oratorical and
martial than poetical, and Dr. Drury, my grand patron, (our head
master,) had a great notion that I should turn out an orator, from my
fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and
my action.
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