This purity of manners, and intenseness of application, soon extended my
renown, and I was applauded by those, whose opinion I then thought
unlikely to deceive me, as a young man that gave uncommon hopes of
future eminence. My performances in time reached my native province, and
my relations congratulated themselves upon the new honours that were
added to their family.
I returned home covered with academical laurels, and fraught with
criticism and philosophy. The wit and the scholar excited curiosity, and
my acquaintance was solicited by innumerable invitations. To please will
always be the wish of benevolence, to be admired must be the constant
aim of ambition; and I therefore considered myself as about to receive
the reward of my honest labours, and to find the efficacy of learning
and of virtue.
The third day after my arrival I dined at the house of a gentleman who
had summoned a multitude of his friends to the annual celebration of his
wedding-day. I set forward with great exultation, and thought myself
happy that I had an opportunity of displaying my knowledge to so
numerous an assembly. I felt no sense of my own insufficiency, till,
going up stairs to the dining-room, I heard the mingled roar of
obstreperous merriment.
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