The parents of Isaac Barrow, the celebrated English divine,
conceived so mean an opinion of his temper and parts when he was
a boy at the Charterhouse School, that his father used to say,
if it pleased God to take from him any of his children, he hoped
it might be Isaac, the least promising. Adam Clarke’s father
was equally uncomplimentary to his own flesh and blood when he
proclaimed his son to be “a grievous dunce.” Poe, at West Point,
was a laughing-stock to his schoolmates. Sheridan’s mother
presented him to a new tutor as “an incorrigible dunce.” Byron,
at Harrow, was in no wise distinguished above his fellows.
Napoleon and Wellington in their schooldays were distinguished
only for dulness.--_Lippincott’s Magazine._
(1300)
=Great, The, and Little Contrasted=--See SINS, ACCUMULATED.
=Greater, The, Controlling the Lesser=--See MASTER-MIND, THE.