He was proceeding quietly and happily in this path, when an incident occurred, which disturbed him not a little. He was called upon in his turn, to compose and repeat a declamation in the chapel, and a prize of books was at this precise period, bequeathed by a former master of the college, to the best declamation of the year. This was a great stimulus, and roused all his energies. But his mortification was undescribable, when sitting down to compose on the given subject, he found he could make nothing of it. The mind, it is true, was crowded with ideas, illustrations, characters, anecdotes, but he was unable to combine and arrange them. It was still worse when he attempted to express them in Latin. He could make Latin verse readily, and with some degree of elegance. He had indeed written themes, made translations from various English authors; but the thing was totally different: a regular composition of several pages first to be digested, and afterwards recited, seemed to present difficulties invincible. To make bad worse, he had brought with him to college something of a reputation for classical attainment, and at examination first, and afterwards at the ordinary college lectures, he certainly did not lose the footing he had gained. But original composition was a very distinct matter, and more particularly in Latin. The time was limited, the last day came, and he had made very little progress. He however put something together, and with the help of a little self-command, and a tolerably good manner and modulation of voice, he got through better than he expected. He was, however, abashed and ashamed to put the composition into the hands of the tutor, which it was customary to do. It was very indifferent, and at best but English Latin. It must be unnecessary to say, that the declamation prize was not gained this year, but it was the next. “Here let me speak the truth.—(_Loquitur protempore Sexagenarius._)—I never encountered any literary difficulty in the whole course of my studies greater than that of a proficiency in writing Latin, properly so called. For alas! though I did obtain the prize in the subsequent competition of my brother under-graduates, I think that at this time I should be afraid and ashamed to peruse the successful essay. It must have been from a mere relative superiority, and from no intrinsic merit in the composition itself. It is very singular, but very true, I could read the language with sufficient facility; I could speak it with a sort of fluency, and in my Act, and other exercises of the School, was complimented for this very talent by the Moderator, who was an approved scholar, and was afterwards the author of a popular tract on Greek and Latin metres. Yet I could not catch the idiom—the rhythm was English. At a subsequent period I was more successful, and at length I could write it habitually, with correct and real Latinity. But in the interval, a circumstance occurred which I will candidly relate.