He had been taught, by
whatever intelligence, the nearest way to the heart
of an academick, and at his arrival entertained all
who came about him with such profusion, that the
professors were lured by the smell of his table from
their books, and flocked round him with all the
cringes of awkward complaisance. This eagerness
answered the merchant's purpose: he glutted them
with delicacies, and softened them with caresses,
till he prevailed upon one after another to open his
bosom, and make a discovery of his competitions,
jealousies, and resentments. Having thus learned
each man's character, partly from himself, and partly
from his acquaintances, he resolved to find some
other education for his son, and went away convinced,
that a scholastick life has no other tendency
than to vitiate the morals and contract the
understanding: nor would he afterwards hear with patience
the praises of the ancient authors, being persuaded
that scholars of all ages must have been the same,
and that Xenophon and Cicero were professors of
some former university, and therefore mean and
selfish, ignorant and servile, like those whom he had
lately visited and forsaken.
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