contracted my legs, and produced, without any visible symptoms, the
most excruciating pain, was ineffectually opposed by the various
methods of bathing and pumping. From Bath I was transported to
Winchester, to the house of a physician; and after the failure of
his medical skill, we had again recourse to the virtues of the Bath
waters. During the intervals of these fits, I moved with my father
to Beriton and Putney; and a short unsuccessful trial was attempted
to renew my attendance at Westminster School. But my infirmities
could not be reconciled with the hours and discipline of a public
seminary; and instead of a domestic tutor, who might have watched
the favourable moments, and gently advanced the progress of my
learning, my father was too easily content with such occasional
teachers as the different places of my residence could supply. I
was never forced, and seldom was I persuaded, to admit these
lessons: yet I read with a clergyman at Bath some odes of Horace,
and several episodes of Virgil, which gave me an imperfect and
transient enjoyment of the Latin poets. It might now be apprehended
that I should continue for life an illiterate cripple; but, as I
approached my sixteenth year, Nature displayed in my favour her
mysterious energies: my constitution was fortified and fixed; and my
disorders, instead of growing with my growth and strengthening with
my strength, most wonderfully vanished. I have never possessed or
abused the insolence of health: but since that time few persons have
been more exempt from real or imaginary ills; and, till I am
admonished by the gout, the reader will no more be troubled with the
history of my bodily complaints. My unexpected recovery again
encouraged the hope of my education; and I was placed at Esher, in
Surrey, in the house of the Reverend Mr. Philip Francis, in a
pleasant spot, which promised to unite the various benefits of air,
exercise, and study (Jan.,1752). The translator of Horace might