overcame every impediment. Indolent as he was, he acquired
knowledge with such ease and rapidity that at every school to
which he was sent he was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to
eighteen he resided at home, and was left to his own devices. He
learned much at this time, though his studies were without
guidance and without plan. He ransacked his father's shelves,
dipped into a multitude of books, read what was interesting, and
passed over what was dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired
little or no useful knowledge in such a way: but much that was
dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel. He read little
Greek: for his proficiency in that language was not such that he
could take much pleasure in the masters of Attic poetry and
eloquence. But he had left school a good Latinist; and he soon
acquired, in the large and miscellaneous library of which he now
had the command, an extensive knowledge of Latin literature.
That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great
public schools of England he never possessed. But he was early
familiar with some classical writers who were quite unknown to
the best scholars in the sixth form at Eton. He was peculiarly
attracted by the works of the great restorers of learning. Once,
while searching for some apples, he found a huge folio volume of
Petrarch's works. The name excited his curiosity; and he eagerly
devoured hundreds of pages. Indeed, the diction and
versification of his own Latin compositions show that he had paid
at least as much attention to modern copies from the antique as
to the original models.

While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was
sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much
better qualified to pore upon books, and to talk about them, than