uncle or through my uncle that I should be sent to Cambridge, and this
was adopted by my father. I think it likely that this was in 1816.

"In December 1816, Dealtry's Fluxions was bought for me, and I read it
and understood it well. I borrowed Hutton's Course of Mathematics of
old Mr Ransome, who had come to reside at Greenstead near Colchester,
and read a good deal of it.

"About Ladyday 1817 I began to read mathematics with Mr Rogers
(formerly, I think, a Fellow of Sidney College, and an indifferent
mathematician of the Cambridge school), who had succeeded a Mr Tweed
as assistant to Mr Crosse in the school. I went to his house twice a
week, on holiday afternoons. I do not remember how long I received
lessons from him, but I think to June, 1818. This course was extremely
valuable to me, not on account of Mr Rogers's abilities (for I
understood many things better than he did) but for its training me
both in Cambridge subjects and in the Cambridge accurate methods of
treating them. I went through Euclid (as far as usually read), Wood's
Algebra, Wood's Mechanics, Vince's Hydrostatics, Wood's Optics,
Trigonometry (in a geometrical treatise and also in Woodhouse's
algebraical form), Fluxions to a good extent, Newton's Principia to
the end of the 9th section. This was a large quantity, but I read it
accurately and understood it perfectly, and could write out any one of
the propositions which I had read in the most exact form. My connexion
with Mr Rogers was terminated by _his_ giving me notice that he could
not undertake to receive me any longer: in fact I was too much for
him. I generally read these books in a garret in our house in George
Lane, which was indefinitely appropriated to my brother and myself. I
find that I copied out Vince's Conic Sections in February, 1819. The
first book that I copied was the small geometrical treatise on