Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
I was next placed under the care of the Rev. James Evans, who kept a very
respectable school in Castle Street, at Salisbury. This gentleman was also
a Welshman; and, as I had taken a great antipathy to Reverend Welshmen, I
felt rather uncomfortable when I ascertained that he came from the land of
goats. My fears, however, were groundless; he was a gentleman in every
respect the reverse of him of whom I have so recently spoken. To be sure
he was pedantic enough, having been all his life a school-master; but he
was a humane, kind-hearted man, and his strictness was assumed, for the
purpose of maintaining by discipline a due subordination in the school.
His lady, Mrs. Evans, was also a combination of good qualities, and I
believe there never was a more happy couple. She delighted to make every
body happy about her. As for myself, the good disposition that I took with
me to Andover, was in a great measure flogged out of me there; I was
become impatient of controul, and had imbibed an ungovernable spirit,
which led me into difficulties and disappointments, that I should
otherwise have avoided. I have often lamented the trouble that I gave this
worthy man, as well as his lady, and many years back thought it my duty to
take an occasion of expressing the sorrow I felt for any uneasiness that I
had caused them during my stay there.
The life which I led here was a life, of pleasure compared to that which I
led at the place I had quitted, and although it was impossible for me to
recover that which I lost at Andover, either in disposition or in
learning, yet I acquired ten times more real knowledge of books in one
year at this school, under Mr. Evans, than I did at Andover in the two
years and a half that I existed there. I remained nearly three years at
Salisbury, at the end of which time I was become a pretty good latin
scholar, and could construe Virgil and Horace with considerable ease to
myself. I was an excellent penman, and a pretty good mathematician, as
well as a complete master of mensuration. I had for many years been a
pupil of the celebrated Mr. Goodall, and as I was acknowledged by him to
have arrived at a great degree of perfection in elegantly "tripping it on
the light fantastic toe," he frequently took me to exhibit at his balls,
both in Salisbury and other places. I was, in good truth, excessively fond
of dancing, and I was not a little proud, at one of the race balls, to be
selected by Mr. Goodall, who was master of the ceremonies, to stand one of
the first three couple with the Prince of Wales, (my partner Miss S.
Mahon) to enable his royal Highness to accomplish the figure of _Maney
Musk_, for the first time introduced at Salisbury, by his Royal Highness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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