when I joined it. In person he was tall and meagre; and not without great propriety did we style him gravissimus in our Latin dissertations. But with all his gravity, he was neither pedantic, nor harsh, nor repulsive; on the contrary, he was a very kindhearted man, and over all his pupils he extended a parent's care. I for one loved him like a father. When he left us, which he did soon after my arrival, he was succeeded by the subrector, whose name was Barth. This man had long regarded Geissler with great jealousy—an amusing, though to me very provoking, instance of which displayed itself soon after his promotion to the rectorship. It was customary every New Year's Day for a boy of the first form to deliver an oration commemorating the occurrences of the past year—which oration was submitted to the inspection of the rector before delivery. This duty happened to devolve upon me on the first occasion after Geissler's departure; and this event appearing to be the most important that had befallen the school within the last year, and my heart being filled with reverence for the man, I had launched forth in his praises in very glowing terms, and lamented most pathetically the great loss which the school had sustained in consequence of his retirement. It is true that I endeavoured to throw out a sop for his successor, by stating how satisfactorily his place had been filled up. But here the truth of the old adage was made manifest: pectus est quod disertos facit: it is the heart alone which is the fountain of genuine eloquence. After my warm eulogium upon Geissler, I saw that my strained panegyric on his successor was but a cold and impotent conclusion; and such also it was felt to be by rector Barth. For when I submitted my oration to his perusal, he had scarcely read it through before he broke out into a strain of unmeasured invective against Geissler. He accused him of having relaxed the ancient discipline of the school. He said that he had no pretensions to the name of scholar—and so saying, he tore into shreds the obnoxious pages on which his praises were penned. For a while I stood confounded .by his vehemence; but when I recovered myself, I said that I supposed no mention at all might be made of Geissler in the oration. This brought him to his senses, and he now appeared to be somewhat ashamed of the violence he had displayed. He saw that the omission of all notice of his predecessor's services, would redound more to his own than to Geissler's discredit; and he therefore answered, that by all means he might be mentioned, but that my expressions of admiration and esteem must be very materially modified. This was accordingly done; but I felt that my discourse had been shorn of its brightest beams; and though I delivered it ex cathêdra to a crowded schoolroom, I experienced none of those ecstatic emotions in the delivery of my maiden rhetoric, which would have filled my soul had I been permitted to eulogise my old teacher to my heart's content. My feelings had been wounded, and, what was just as sore for me to bear at that age—my vanity had been piqued.
With regard to the subordinate masters, I remember well that the estimation in which we lads of the upper form held them, depended very much on the fact, whether or not they possessed handsome wives and pretty daughters. For in our wisdom we never could understand how any man of sense could so far forget himself, (and us,) as to marry any woman who did not combine in her person the wit of an Aspasia and the charms of the Medicean Venus. I remember one poor man, who did not stand very high in our good graces, to begin with, loosing caste entirely, and completing the catalogue of his disgrace by daring to take to wife a very plain woman. We vowed that he had done it purposely to spite us, and I for one bore him an especial ill-will, which indeed appeared to be mutual. For on one occasion, when he was examining our class, he happened to ask me what part of speech ετυφθῃ, or some such word, was. The whole class tittered at the idea of such an elementary question being put a first-form boy, and I, regarding it as an insult, made no reply. He repeated the question—what is ετυφθῃ, sirrah? upon which I answered doggedly, that I believed it was a word which occurred somewhere or other in a work I had once seen in my infancy, called the Greek grammar. This retort turned the laugh against him, and he became very irate. He reported me to the
