My romance reading concluded with the summer of 1719, the following
winter was differently employed. My mother's library being quite
exhausted, we had recourse to that part of her father's which had
devolved to us; here we happily found some valuable books, which was by
no means extraordinary, having been selected by a minister that truly
deserved that title, in whom learning (which was the rage of the times)
was but a secondary commendation, his taste and good sense being most
conspicuous. The history of the Church and Empire by Le Sueur,
Bossuett's Discourses on Universal History, Plutarch's Lives, the history
of Venice by Nani, Ovid's Metamorphoses, La Bruyere, Fontenelle's World,
his Dialogues of the Dead, and a few volumes of Moliere, were soon ranged
in my father's closet, where, during the hours he was employed in his
business, I daily read them, with an avidity and taste uncommon, perhaps
unprecedented at my age.

Plutarch presently became my greatest favorite. The satisfaction I
derived from repeated readings I gave this author, extinguished my
passion for romances, and I shortly preferred Agesilaus, Brutus, and
Aristides, to Orondates, Artemenes, and Juba. These interesting
studies, seconded by the conversations they frequently occasioned with my
father, produced that republican spirit and love of liberty, that haughty
and invincible turn of mind, which rendered me impatient of restraint or
servitude, and became the torment of my life, as I continually found
myself in situations incompatible with these sentiments. Incessantly
occupied with Rome and Athens, conversing, if I may so express myself
with their illustrious heroes; born the citizen of a republic, of a
father whose ruling passion was a love of his country, I was fired with
these examples; could fancy myself a Greek or Roman, and readily give
into the character of the personage whose life I read; transported by the
recital of any extraordinary instance of fortitude or intrepidity,