The
famous exercise which Nicois made such a rout about, was in praise of
abundance: an English theme on this thesis, from Horace--
"_Dulce est de magno tollore acervo_. "
He was in college; and no man on earth could conjecture that in his
own _acervo_ there would ever be aggrandizement, such as it has since
occurred.
Lord Stormont at school began his knack of oral imitations, and when
a child, could speak quite as well as afterwards; after his uncle, the
disgusting pronunciation of the letter o then too infected his language;
he made it come to the ear like an a. Humorously glancing at this
affectation, Onslow or Stanhope said "Murray's horse is an ass."
Markham, the Archbishop of York, made an early display of classical
taste, and the diligent cultivation of it. Some of his school exercises
are extant, and show more than a promise of that refinement and
exactness, which afterwards distinguished his performances at Christ
Church. The Latin version of the fragment of Simonides, as beautiful as
any thing in the whole range of poetical imitation, though published
in the Oxford Lachrymo as Mr. Bournes, is known to be written by Mr.
Markham.
At school, too, Markham's conversation had a particularity known to
distinguish it. War was his favourite topic, and caught, perhaps, from
the worthy major, his father, and from his crony Webb, afterwards the
general.
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