of virtue, or what in the religious stile are called good works.
Those, however, of our congregation, who considered themselves
as orthodox Presbyterians, disapprov'd his doctrine, and were join'd
by most of the old clergy, who arraign'd him of heterodoxy before
the synod, in order to have him silenc'd. I became his zealous partisan,
and contributed all I could to raise a party in his favour, and we
combated for him a while with some hopes of success. There was much
scribbling pro and con upon the occasion; and finding that, tho'
an elegant preacher, he was but a poor writer, I lent him my pen
and wrote for him two or three pamphlets, and one piece in the Gazette
of April, 1735. Those pamphlets, as is generally the case with
controversial writings, tho' eagerly read at the time, were soon
out of vogue, and I question whether a single copy of them now exists.
During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly.
One of our adversaries having heard him preach a sermon that was
much admired, thought he had somewhere read the sermon before,
or at least a part of it. On search he found that part quoted
at length, in one of the British Reviews, from a discourse
of Dr. Foster's. This detection gave many of our party disgust,
who accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasion'd our more speedy
discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather
approv'd his giving us good sermons compos'd by others, than bad
ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was the practice
of our common teachers. He afterward acknowledg'd to me that none
of those he preach'd were his own; adding, that his memory was such
as enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one reading only.
On our defeat, he left us in search elsewhere of better fortune,
and I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, tho' I continu'd
many years my subscription for the support of its ministers.
I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made myself so much
a master of the French as to be able to read the books with ease.
I then undertook the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also
learning it, us'd often to tempt me to play chess with him.
Finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare for study,
I at length refus'd to play any more, unless on this condition,
that the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task,
either in parts of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations,
etc., which tasks the vanquish'd was to perform upon honour,
before our next meeting. As we play'd pretty equally, we thus beat
one another into that language. I afterwards with a little painstaking,
acquir'd as much of the Spanish as to read their books also.
I have already mention'd that I had only one year's instruction
in a Latin school, and that when very young, after which I neglected
that language entirely. But, when I had attained an acquaintance
with the French, Italian, and Spanish, I was surpriz'd to find,
on looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood so much more
of that language than I had imagined, which encouraged me to apply