There is certainly no surer mode of
developing the reflective and reasoning powers of the mind; and the boy
progressed with a rapidity which was almost alarming. Oratory, too, was
of course cultivated, and to this end the young nobleman was made to
recite before a small audience passages from Shakspeare, and even
speeches which had been delivered in the House of Lords, and we may be
certain he showed no bashfulness in this display.
He was precocious beyond measure, and at sixteen was a man. His first
act of folly--or, perhaps, _he_ thought, of manhood--came off at this
early age. He fell in love with the daughter of a Major-General Holmes;
and though there is nothing extraordinary in that, for nine-tenths of us
have been love-mad at as early an age, he did what fortunately very few
do in a first love affair, he married the adored one. Early marriages
are often extolled, and justly enough, as safeguards against profligate
habits, but this one seems to have had the contrary effect on young
Philip. His wife was in every sense too good for him: he was madly in
love with her at first, but soon shamefully and openly faithless. Pope's
line--
'A tyrant to the wife his heart approved,'
requires explanation here.
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