The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

Chapter XII

68 The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle striker; and after having filled the whole house with confusion and dismay, opened his eyes and laughed heartily at the success of his own imposition. It would be an endless and perhaps no very agreeable task, to enumerate all the unlucky pranks he played upon his uncle and others, before he attained the fourth year of his age; about which time he was sent, with an attendant, to a day-school in the neighbourhood , that (to use his good mother’s own expression) he might be out of harm’s way. Here, however, he made little progress, except in mischief, which he practised with impunity, because the school-mistress would run no risk of disobliging a lady of fortune, by exercising unnecessary severities upon her only child. Nevertheless Mrs. Pickle was not so blindly partial as to be pleased with such unseasonable indulgence. Perry was taken out of the hands of this courteous teacher, and committed to the instruction of a pedagogue, who was ordered to administer such correction as the boy should in his opinion deserve. This authority he did not neglect to use; his pupil was regularly flogged twice a day, and after having been subjected to this course of discipline for the space of eighteen months, declared the most obstinate, dull and untoward genius that ever had fallen under his cultivation; instead of being reformed, he seemed rather hardened and confirmed in his vicious inclinations, and was dead to all sense of fear as well as shame. His mother was extremely mortified at these symptoms of stupidity , which she considered as an inheritance derived from the spirit of his father, and consequently insurmountable by all the efforts of human care. But the commodore rejoiced over the ruggedness of his nature, and was particularly pleased when upon inquiry he found that Perry had beaten all the boys in the school; a circumstance from which he prognosticated every thing that was fair and fortunate in his future fate; observing , that at his age he himself was just such another. The boy, who was now turned of six, having profited so little under the birch of his unsparing governor, Mrs. Pickle was counselled to send him to a boarding-school not far from London, which was kept by a certain person very eminent for his successful method of education. This advice she the more readily embraced, because at that time she found herself pretty far gone with another child, that she hoped would console her for the disappointment she had met with in the unpromising talents of Perry, or at any rate divide her concern, so as to enable her to endure the absence of either. chapter xii. Peregrine is sent to a boarding-school, becomes remarkable for his genius and ambition. The commodore understanding her determination, to which her husband did not venture to make the least objection, interested himself so much in behalf of his favourite, as to fit him out at his own charge, and accompany him in person to the place of his destination; where he defrayed the expence of his entrance, and left him Volume One, Chapter XII 69 to the particular care and inspection of the usher,1 who having been recommended to him as a person of parts and integrity, received per advance a handsome consideration for the task he undertook. Nothing could be better judged than this piece of liberality; the assistant was actually a man of learning, probity, and good sense; and though obliged by the scandalous administration of fortune to act in the character of an inferior teacher, had by his sole capacity and application, brought the school to that degree of reputation which it never could have obtained from the talents of his superior.2 He had established an œ conomy, which though regular, was not at all severe, by enacting a body of laws suited to the age and comprehension of every individual; and each transgressor was fairly tried by his peers, and punished according to the verdict of the jury. No boy was scourged for want of apprehension, but a spirit of emulation was raised by well-timed praise and artful comparison, and maintained by a distribution of small prizes, which were adjudged to those who signalized themselves either by their industry, sobriety or genius. This tutor, whose name was Jennings, began with Perry, according to his constant maxim, by examining the soil; that is, studying his temper, in...