innate worth gave me a too great degree of pride, but the endeavours
of my instructor to inspire humility were not all lost; and habitual
reading, well-timed praise, and the pleasures flowing from science,
made the labours of study at length my recreation.

My memory became remarkable; I am well read in the Scriptures, the
classics, and ancient history; was acquainted with geography; could
draw; learnt fencing, riding, and other necessary exercises.

My religion was Lutheran; but morality was taught me by my father,
and by the worthy man to whose care he committed the forming of my
heart, whose memory I shall ever hold in veneration. While a boy, I
was enterprising in all the tricks of boys, and exercised my wit in
crafty excuses; the warmth of my passions gave a satiric, biting
cast to my writings, whence it has been imagined, by those who knew
but little of me, I was a dangerous man; though, I am conscious,
this was a false judgment.

A soldier himself, my father would have all his sons the same; thus,
when we quarrelled, we terminated our disputes with wooden sabres,
and, brandishing these, contested by blows for victory, while our
father sat laughing, pleased at our valour and address. This
practice, and the praises he bestowed, encouraged a disposition
which ought to have been counteracted.

Accustomed to obtain the prize, and be the hero of scholastic
contentions, I acquired the bad habit of disputation, and of
imagining myself a sage when little more than a boy. I became
stubborn in argument.; hasty to correct others, instead of patiently
attentive: and, by presumption, continually liable to incite