I once, for a very short time indeed, had the honour of being a schoolmaster, and was invested with the important office of “rearing the tender thought,” and “teaching the young idea how to shoot;” of educating in the principles of the Established Church, and bestowing the strictest attention to morals. The case was this; my young friend G----, a graduate of Oxford, and an ingenious and worthy man, thought proper, some months back, to establish, or endeavour to establish, an academy for young gentlemen, in my immediate vicinity. He had already procured nine day-pupils to begin with, whom he himself taught,--prudence as yet prohibiting the employment of ushers,--when he was summoned hastily to attend upon a dying relative in Hampshire, from whom he had some expectations. This was a dilemma to poor G----, who had no one to leave in charge of his three classes; and he could not bear the idea of playing truant himself so soon after commencing business. In his extremity he applied to me as his forlorn hope, and one forlorn enough; for it is well-known among my friends that I have little Latin, and less Greek, and am, on every account, a worse accountant. I urged these objections to G----, but in vain, for he had no “friend in need,” learned or unlearned, within any reasonable distance, and, as he said to comfort me, “in three or four days merely the boys could not _unlearn_ much of anything.” [Illustration: A BRANCH COACH.] At last I gave way to his importunity. On Thursday night, he started from the tree of knowledge by a branch coach; and at nine on Friday morning, I found myself sitting at his desk in the novel character of pedagogue. I am sorry to say, not one of the boys played truant, or was confined at home with a violent illness.--There they were, nine little mischievous wretches, goggling, tittering, pointing, winking, grimacing, and mocking at authority, in a way enough to invoke two Elisha bears out of Southgate Wood. To put a stop to this indecorum, I put on my spectacles, stuck my cane upright in the desk, with the fool’s-cap atop--but they inspired little terror; worn out at last, I seized the cane, and rushing from my dais, well flogged--I believe it is called flogging--the boy, a Creole, nearest me; who, though far from the biggest, was much more daring and impertinent than the rest. So far my random selection was judicious; but it appeared afterwards, that I had chastised an only son, whose mother had expressly stipulated for him an exemption from all punishment. I suspect, with the moral prudence of fond mothers, she had informed the little imp of the circumstance, for this Indian-Pickle fought and kicked his preceptor as unceremoniously as he would have scuffled with Black Diana or Agamemnon. My first move, however, had a salutary effect; the urchins settled, or made believe to settle, to their tasks; but I soon perceived that the genuine industry and application belonged to one,