7



bar or labored in the field during the summer, for the privilege
of school during the winter months. Even this did not last, for
want of means, (mark that, ye of more prosperous fortunes;)
for want of means to defray his tuition fees, this unconquerable
boy exchanged the character of pupil for preceptor at fifteen
years of age and taught what he had learned to others for hire
during the winter months, that he might accumulate a fund with
which to prosecute his own education thereafter. He continued
thus till about his sixteenth year; when, in consequence of un-
pleasant difficulties with his step-father, he was taken to Mount-
sterling by Mr. STOCKTON, an intimate friend of his deceased
father. From this time he seems to have been left to his own
guidance, and wrestled alone with his fortune. Upon the divis-
ion of the wreck of the paternal estate, a negre was assigned to
Richard about the period of his removal from home. He sold
this slave to his friend, and with the proceeds, together with
what he had earned as a preceptor, maintained himself at the
public school in Mountsterling till his eighteenth year, when he
entered Transylvania as an irregular Junior. The rules of col-
lege would have excluded him from the privilege of examination
and debarred him even from a trial for the honors of his class.
But that discipline which fixes a given time for given accom-
plishments and deems their attainment impossible, save within
the limits and in the mode prescribed, was not framed for such
as he. The hardy orphan who had been tutor and instructor of
others at fifteen, and absolute and unheeded master of himself at
sixteen, was not likely to be damped or daunted from his not
having passed through a technical routine of studies, based upon
ordinary calculations and framed for ordinary minds. He had
already trampled upon the legal maxim which fixes one and
twenty as the age for self-government, already "had his daring
boyhood governed men." He gazed in scorn upon the artificial
impediment which would have barred him from academic honors,
and cleared it at a bound. His intrepid genius, his intense ap-
plication, and the bold and extra-collegiate range of his informa-
tion had attracted the eye and the admiration of the celebrated
President HOLLEY. Through his intercession and influence the
strict canon of the University was dispensed with in Richard's
behalf; he was admitted to an examination with his class, and