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.
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