'
[Page 74: Dr. Adams. A.D. 1730.]
The Bishop of Dromore observes in a letter to me,
'The pleasure he took in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often
mentioned. But I have heard him say, what ought to be recorded to the
honour of the present venerable master of that College, the Reverend
William Adams, D.D., who was then very young, and one of the junior
fellows; that the mild but judicious expostulations of this worthy man,
whose virtue awed him, and whose learning he revered, made him really
ashamed of himself, "though I fear (said he) I was too proud to own it."
'I have heard from some of his cotemporaries that he was generally seen
lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young students round him,
whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their studies, if
not spiriting them up to rebellion against the College discipline, which
in his maturer years he so much extolled.'
He very early began to attempt keeping notes or memorandums, by way of a
diary of his life. I find, in a parcel of loose leaves, the following
spirited resolution to contend against his natural indolence:
'_Oct. 1729. Desidiae valedixi; syrenis istius cantibus surdam posthac
aurem obversurus_.--I bid farewell to Sloth, being resolved henceforth
not to listen to her syren strains.'
I have also in my possession a few leaves of another _Libellus_, or
little book, entitled ANNALES, in which some of the early particulars of
his history are registered in Latin.
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