an affection for me, and I almost worshipped him. He was assiduous to
teach me every thing he knew; and fortunately I was no less apt and
eager to learn. Having already made a tolerable proficiency in the
learned languages, the richness of the French in authors made me
labour to acquire it with avidity. The Italian poets were equally
inviting; so that, by his aid, I mastered the idioms and attained the
spirit of both those languages. The dialects of the Teutonic were
likewise familiar to him, and I made some progress in the German;
being desirous from his recommendation to read, among others, the
works of Lessing, Klopstock, Goethe, and Schiller. The acquirement of
knowledge is an essential and therefore a pure pleasure; and my time,
though laboriously spent, glided swiftly and happily away.

With respect to amusement, the violin became my favourite. My now
dearest friend, the usher, among his other attainments was a musician:
my affection for him had made him intimate at the parsonage-house, and
his aid greatly promoted our musical parties.

Finding knowledge thus delightful, my zeal to promulgate it was great.
I had as I imagined so much to communicate, that I panted for an
opportunity to address myself to multitudes. At that time I knew
no place so well calculated for this purpose as the pulpit; and my
inclination to be a preacher was tolerably conformable to the views
of the rector. Not but he had his doubts. Few men are satisfied with
their own profession; and though he had great veneration for church
authority, which he held to be infinitely superior from its very
nature to civil government, yet his propensity to dabble in the law
had practically and theoretically taught him some of the advantages of
its professors. In rank it was true that the Archbishop of Canterbury
was the second man in the kingdom, and in the rector's opinion ought