 antiquity as
to be nearly on a par with a genuine ancient Roman in his knowledge of English:
a triumph that affected his good parents with the tenderest emotions, and caused
the father and mother of Mr. Briggs (whose learning, like ill-arranged luggage,
was so tightly packed that he couldn't get at anything he wanted) to hide their
diminished heads. The fruit laboriously gathered from the tree of knowledge by
this latter young gentleman, in fact, had been subjected to so much pressure,
that it had become a kind of intellectual Norfolk Biffin, and had nothing of its
original form or flavour remaining. Master Bitherstone now, on whom the forcing
system had the happier and not uncommon effect of leaving no impression
whatever, when the forcing apparatus ceased to work, was in a much more
comfortable plight; and being then on shipboard, bound for Bengal, found himself
forgetting, with such admirable rapidity, that it was doubtful whether his
declensions of noun-substantives would hold out to the end of the voyage.
    When Doctor Blimber, in pursuance of the usual course, would have said to
the young gentlemen, on the morning of the party, »Gentlemen, we will resume our
studies on the twenty-fifth of next month,« he departed from the usual course,
and said, »Gentlemen, when our friend Cincinnatus retired to his farm, he did
not present to the senate any Roman whom he sought to nominate as his successor.
But there is a Roman here,« said Doctor Blimber, laying his hand on the shoulder
of Mr. Feeder, B. A., »adolescens imprimis gravis et doctus, gentlemen, whom I,
a retiring Cincinnatus, wish to present to my little senate, as their future
Dictator. Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next
month, under the auspices of Mr. Feeder, B. A.« At this (which Doctor Blimber
had previously called upon all the parents, and urbanely explained), the young
gentlemen cheered; and Mr. Tozer, on behalf of the rest, instantly presented the
Doctor with a silver inkstand, in a speech containing very little of the
mother-tongue, but fifteen quotations from the Latin, and seven from the Greek,
which moved the younger of the young gentlemen to discontent and envy: they
remarking, »Oh, ah! It was all very well for old Tozer, but they didn't
subscribe money for old Tozer to show off with, they supposed; did they? What
business was it of old Tozer's more than anybody
