13. That such as perform well, shall be prefer’d according to their Merit, and shall have liberty to leave School before the usual Time; but such as are Negligent herein, shall have their Exercizes to write over again after School. 14. That none presume to call any Party or Nick-names nor give any ill or reproachful Language, much less Curse, Sware, or Lye, but in all things behave in a quiet, peaceable, and civil manner. 15. That the Boarders shall not go beyond y^e bounds belonging to y^e House on any pretence whatsoever without leave, on the forfeiture of 6d. or two Hours’ Exercize after School for Every such Offence. 16. That one Scholar is not to strike another, or challenge him to fight; but in case of any Difference shall acquaint the Master therewith and be satisfied with his Determination. Whilst acquiring Greek at the public school, Priestley learned Hebrew on holidays of the Dissenting minister of the place, Mr Kirkby, under whose care he eventually came. The weakly, consumptive habit into which he now fell necessitated his withdrawal from school. His fondness for books had led his aunt to encourage the hope that he might be trained for the ministry, and he readily entered into her views. “But,” he says, “my ill health obliged me to turn my thoughts another way, and, with a view to trade, I learned the modern languages, French, Italian and High Dutch [German], without a master; and in the first and last of them I translated and wrote letters for an uncle of mine who was a merchant, and who intended to put me into a counting-house in Lisbon.” Indeed, he says a house was actually engaged to receive him there, and everything was nearly ready for his undertaking the voyage when his health so far improved that the idea of the ministry was resumed. During the two years in which he had been kept away from school the boy was thrown almost entirely upon his own resources. It says much for the activity and eagerness of his mind, his diligence and his power of mental acquisitiveness, that he should have neglected no opportunity of gaining knowledge from the various heretical divines who came to drink a dish of tea with his aunt. He tells us that from Mr Haggerstone, a Dissenting minister in the neighbourhood, who had been educated under Maclaurin, and whom he visited twice a week, he learned geometry, algebra and various branches of mathematics, theoretical and practical. He also read, with but little assistance from him, Gravesend’s _Elements of Natural Philosophy_, Watts’s _Logic_, and Locke’s _Essay on the Human Understanding_. “He also gave lessons in Hebrew to a Baptist minister at Gildersome, a village about four miles from Leeds, and by that means made himself ‘a considerable proficient in that language.’” “At the same time I learned Chaldee and Syriac, and just began to read Arabic.”