Sir Everard's chaplain,
an Oxonian, who had lost his fellowship for declining to take the oaths
at the accession of George I, was not only an excellent classical
scholar, but reasonably skilled in science, and master of most modern
languages. He was, however, old and indulgent, and the recurring
interregnum, during which Edward was entirely freed from his discipline,
occasioned such a relaxation of authority, that the youth was permitted,
in a great measure, to learn as he pleased, what he pleased, and when he
pleased. This slackness of rule might have been ruinous to a boy of slow
understanding, who, feeling labour in the acquisition of knowledge, would
have altogether neglected it, save for the command of a taskmaster; and
it might have proved equally dangerous to a youth whose animal spirits
were more powerful than his imagination or his feelings, and whom the
irresistible influence of Alma would have engaged in field-sports from
morning till night. But the character of Edward Waverley was remote from
either of these. His powers of apprehension were so uncommonly quick as
almost to resemble intuition, and the chief care of his preceptor was to
prevent him, as a sportsman would phrase it, from over-running his
game--that is, from acquiring his knowledge in a slight, flimsy, and
inadequate manner.
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