Had Jekyl no other excellence than this, I
could not be surprised when he became attorney-general.
"When you got into the place of your ancestor, Sir Joseph," said the
tutor of Jekyl to him, "let this be your motto:
_Et properare loco, et Cesare_."
"Jekyl," said Mrs. Hobart one day, struck with the same address and
exactness, "do you know, if you were a painter, Poussin would be nothing
to you in the balance of a scene."
Several of his English exercises, and his verses, will not easily be
forgotten. And it will be remembered also, in a laughable way, that he
was as mischievous as a gentleman need be; the mobbing a vulgar, the
hoaxing a quiz, all the dialect of the Thames below Chelsea-reach, and
the whole reach of every thing, pleasant but wrong, which the school
statutes put out of reach, but what are the practice of the wits, and
of every gentleman who would live by the statutes. All these were among
Jekyl's early peculiarities, and raised his fame very high for spirit
and cleverness.
"So sweet and voluble was his discourse."
He was very popular among all the boys of his time. And he had a knack
yet more gratifying, of recommending himself to the sisters and cousins
of the boys he visited.
And he well held up in theory what he afterwards exemplified in fact.
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