Sir Robert Walpole, the celebrated minister, was bred at Eton and
King's College, Cambridge. At the first he raised great expectations
as a boy, and when the master was told that St. John, afterwards Lord
Bolingbroke, had with others, his scholars, distinguished themselves
for their eloquence, in the House of Commons, "I am impatient to hear
that Walpole has spoken," was his observation; "for I feel convinced
he will be a good orator." At King's College his career was near being
cut short by an attack of the small-pox. He was then known as a fierce
_Whig_, and his physicians were _Tories_, one of whom, Dr. Brady,
said, "We must take care to save this young man, or we shall be
accused of having purposely neglected him, because he is so violent a
Whig." After he was restored, his spirit and disposition so pleased
the same physician, that he added, "this singular escape seems to be a
sure prediction that he is reserved for important purposes," which
Walpole remembered with complacency.
* * * * *
Dr. Lamb, the present master of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, in his
edition of Master's History of that College, gives the following copy
of a bill, in the handwriting of Dr. John Jegon, a former master,
which may be taken as a specimen of