read them. But it is true; for I remember when Hunter and Curzon, in
1804, told me this opinion at Harrow, I made them laugh by my
ludicrous astonishment in asking them '_What is_ a Review?' To be
sure, they were then less common. In three years more, I was better
acquainted with that same; but the first I ever read was in 1806-7.

"At school I was (as I have said) remarked for the extent and
readiness of my _general_ information; but in all other respects idle,
capable of great sudden exertions, (such as thirty or forty Greek
hexa-meters, of course with such prosody as it pleased God,) but of
few continuous drudgeries. My qualities were much more oratorical and
martial than poetical, and Dr. Drury, my grand patron, (our head
master,) had a great notion that I should turn out an orator, from my
fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and
my action.[27] I remember that my first declamation astonished him
into some unwonted (for he was economical of such) and sudden
compliments, before the declaimers at our first rehearsal. My first
Harrow verses, (that is, English, as exercises,) a translation of a
chorus from the Prometheus of Æschylus, were received by him but
coolly. No one had the least notion that I should subside into poesy.

"Peel, the orator and statesman, ('that was, or is, or is to be,') was
my form-fellow, and we were both at the top of our remove (a
public-school phrase). We were on good terms, but his brother was my
intimate friend. There were always great hopes of Peel, amongst us
all, masters and scholars--and he has not disappointed them. As a
scholar he was greatly my superior; as a declaimer and actor, I was
reckoned at least his equal; as a schoolboy, _out_ of school, I was
always _in_ scrapes, and _he never_; and _in school_, he _always_ knew
his lesson, and I rarely,--but when I knew it, I knew it nearly as