Tell them the lamentable fall of me."
--Richard II.

"I was born at Ramsgill, a little village in Netherdale. My family had
originally been of some rank; they were formerly lords of the town of
Aram, on the southern banks of the Tees. But time had humbled these
pretensions to consideration; though they were still fondly cherished by
the heritors of an ancient name, and idle but haughty recollections. My
father resided on a small farm, and was especially skilful in
horticulture, a taste I derived from him. When I was about thirteen, the
deep and intense Passion that has made the Demon of my life, first
stirred palpably within me. I had always been, from my cradle, of a
solitary disposition, and inclined to reverie and musing; these traits of
character heralded the love that now seized me--the love of knowledge.
Opportunity or accident first directed my attention to the abstruser
sciences. I poured my soul over that noble study, which is the best
foundation of all true discovery; and the success I met with soon turned
my pursuits into more alluring channels. History, poetry, the mastery of
the past, the spell that admits us into the visionary world, took the
place which lines and numbers had done before. I became gradually more
and more rapt and solitary in my habits; knowledge assumed a yet more
lovely and bewitching character, and every day the passion to attain it
increased upon me; I do not, I have not now the heart to do it--enlarge
upon what I acquired without assistance, and with labour sweet in
proportion to its intensity.

[We learn from a letter of Eugene Aram's, now extant, that his
method of acquiring the learned lauguages, was, to linger over five
lines at a time, and never to quit a passage till he thought he had
comprehended its meaning.]