The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., master of Balliol college, Oxford.

34

Life of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. II

(Inscription for a statue of Mercury.
'Are you a rogue? Then take me in your hand.
But steal me not before you understand.
I am your friend! a god of varying mood,
Kind to bad men, but evil to the good'-L. C.)
Puerile as the verses are, and not quite accurate, they
have something in them of the sly simplicity which
marked many of Jowett's sayings in after life.
In these years he formed the habits of industry, of
neatness, and of methodical study, which never left him.
The teachableness, which he always regarded as the best
sign of promise in boyhood, must have been strongly
characteristic of him; and the rarity of outdoor amusements, of which the educational value was then little
recognized, also left its impress on his after career. In
compensation for this want he early became a voracious
reader. He would 'fly upon a new book,' as he once
told me, and in the holidays passed with his sister at
Blackheath or Clapham this taste must have been indulged to the full. The habit of learning poetry by
which had been omitted accord- edition:ing to a fashion of the day. It 'Epigramma, fortasse sepulis worth observing that in a crale, ex persona Thucydidis, ad
truly mercurial spirit the form calcem codicis Augustani adiecof the epigram is 'conveyed' from turn' (v. Jacobsii Anthol. gr. t. 4,
one on Thucydides, quoted by p. 231).
Bothe in the preface to his
',Q IXoy, el croo.os cJ, XaS3e,i' 1r Xepas el 8c 7refvKMa
vis~ Movaov,, plov & A,i YOPISr.
e/iuL yap ov rravEorrY& aros', travpol 8' dyda'raVro
OovKv8irlv 'OXdpov, KeKpowiSQV TO -yeVos.
(Friend, art thou learn'd? Then take me in your hand:
But if unlearn'd, stay till you understand:
Few find their way in me; the many scorn
The son of Olorus, Athenian born.-L. C.)