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CHAP. I.J SCHOOL DAYS AND HOLIDAYS.

more apt to teach wild legends of an Irish hovel, and hold 1734.
forth about fairies and rapparees, than to inculcate what are &&• ⁶-
called the humanities. Little Oliver canae away from him
much as he went, in point of learning ; but there were certain
wandering unsettled tastes, which his friends thought to have
been here implanted in him,* and which, as well as a taste
for song, one of his later essays might seem, to connect with
the vagrant life of the blind harper Carolan, whose wayside
melodies he had been taken to hear.f Unhappily something
more and other than this also remained, in the effects of a
terrible disease which assailed him at the school, and were
not likely soon to pass away.

An attack of confluent small-pox which nearly proved
mortal, had left deep and indelible traces on his face, for
ever settled his small pretension to good-looks, and exposed
him to jest and sarcasm. Kind-natured Mr. Byrne might
best have reconciled him to it, used to his temper as no
doubt he had become; and it was doubly unfortunate to be
sent at such a time away from home, to a school among 1736.
strangers, at once to taste the bitterness of those school ^t- ⁸-
experiences which too early and sadly teach the shy,, ill-
favoured, backward boy what tyrannies, in the large as in that
little world, the strong have to inflict, and what sufferings the

* See his sister Mrs. Hodson's narrative contributed to the Percy Memoir, 3, 4.
She does not give the name of the schoolmaster, but this was supplied by Dr.
Strean. Mangin's Essay, 142.

*(• Essay xx. Thorlogh 0'Carolan, who was born at Nobber in 1670, and
brought up at Carriole O'Shannon, where Oliver's uncle Contarine first settled, died
in 1738 at Eoscommon, to which Oontarme had removed. To his patroness, in.
whose house he died, the wife of the MacDermott of Aldersford, he owed the
"horse, harp, and gossoon," with which, renewed as his needs dictated, he had
meanwhile wandered about for half a century from house to house, a guest always
welcome, improvising music and songs. The harp had been his amusement up
to the age of manhood, when, being struck with blindness, he thus made it his
profession. For curious anecdotes of Carolan, and other Irish poets, see Nichols's
Illustrations of Lit. Hist, of XVIII. Centwy, vii. 688,



	CHAP. I.J SCHOOL DAYS AND HOLIDAYS. more apt to teach wild legends of an Irish hovel, and hold 1734. forth about fairies and rapparees, than to inculcate what are &&• ⁶- called the humanities. Little Oliver canae away from him much as he went, in point of learning ; but there were certain wandering unsettled tastes, which his friends thought to have been here implanted in him,* and which, as well as a taste for song, one of his later essays might seem, to connect with the vagrant life of the blind harper Carolan, whose wayside melodies he had been taken to hear.f Unhappily something more and other than this also remained, in the effects of a terrible disease which assailed him at the school, and were not likely soon to pass away. An attack of confluent small-pox which nearly proved mortal, had left deep and indelible traces on his face, for ever settled his small pretension to good-looks, and exposed him to jest and sarcasm. Kind-natured Mr. Byrne might best have reconciled him to it, used to his temper as no doubt he had become; and it was doubly unfortunate to be sent at such a time away from home, to a school among 1736. strangers, at once to taste the bitterness of those school ^t- ⁸- experiences which too early and sadly teach the shy,, ill- favoured, backward boy what tyrannies, in the large as in that little world, the strong have to inflict, and what sufferings the * See his sister Mrs. Hodson's narrative contributed to the Percy Memoir, 3, 4. She does not give the name of the schoolmaster, but this was supplied by Dr. Strean. Mangin's Essay, 142. (• Essay* xx. Thorlogh 0'Carolan, who was born at Nobber in 1670, and brought up at Carriole O'Shannon, where Oliver's uncle Contarine first settled, died in 1738 at Eoscommon, to which Oontarme had removed. To his patroness, in. whose house he died, the wife of the MacDermott of Aldersford, he owed the "horse, harp, and gossoon," with which, renewed as his needs dictated, he had meanwhile wandered about for half a century from house to house, a guest always welcome, improvising music and songs. The harp had been his amusement up to the age of manhood, when, being struck with blindness, he thus made it his profession. For curious anecdotes of Carolan, and other Irish poets, see Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. Hist, of XVIII. Centwy, vii. 688,