Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. IV. TWO OPPOSITE CHARACTERS; AN EXCURSION; AND A MISFORTUNE. Frm the juvenile affembly, of which our hero was now become a member, we fhall fingle out two characters, who attempted to gain his friend (hip with equal affiduity; and thefe may fuffice as a general defcriptionj the fchool being pretty nearly divided between the amiable and difagreeablc perfons who were its prefent inhabitants. Mafter William Froward was by birth a gentleman; his purfe was fel- dom low; and his perfon eminently the fineft in the place; yet, with thefe advantages in his favour, he was 4 ftill very remote from what we term an imiable youth. His paffions were ftrong in the extreme; and though he was often tenderly warned by his tutor to fubdue their frequent rifings, which rendered him miferable in him- felf, and utterly contemptible to his acquaintance, fuch was the obftinacy of his temper, that (difdaining fuch excellent advice], he refolv’d to purfue his own courfe, whatever might be the confequence; which, the reader will foon find, plunged him in dif- .trefs, and overwhelmed him with grief. We muft now quit our obfervations on this pupil, to furvey the portrait of one, who (though by far his inferior in birth and circumftances), certainly eclipfed him in the eftimation of his mafter, mafter, and the unprejudiced opinion of every judicious obferver. Jofeph Placid was the fon of a poor but honeft couple, who had died about two years before he was placed in the academy) but Mr. Loveboy (hearing of the diftrefled condition in which their child was left, and finding that a mercilefs relation intended to turn him out either to famine, or the workhoufe), with his wonted generofity fupplied him with requifite apparel, and then placed him under the tuition of Mr. Careful, who r…
