Section 214. THE CHILDHOOD OF ROBERT CLIVE[1].
Reading edition
Section 214. THE CHILDHOOD OF ROBERT CLIVE[1].
Some lineaments of the character of the man were early discerned in the child. There remain[2] letters written by his relations when he was in his seventh year; and from[3] these letters it appears that, even at that early age, his strong will and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity[4], had begun to cause great uneasiness to his family. “Fighting,” says one of his uncles, “to which he is out of measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and imperiousness, that he flies out on every occasion[5].” The old people of the neighbourhood still remember to have heard from their parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market Drayton, and with what terror the inhabitants saw (S. 78, N. 14, B) him seated on a stone spout near the summit. They also relate how he formed all the idle lads of the town into a kind of predatory army[6], and compelled the shop-keepers to submit to a tribute of apples and halfpence, in consideration of which[7] he guaranteed the security of their windows. He was sent from school to school, making very little progress in his learning[8], and gaining for himself everywhere the character of an exceedingly naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough to prophesy that the idle lad would make a great figure in the world[9].—Lord Macaulay, “Lord Clive.”