“During my marriage here, perceiving the deficiencies in my education, and sensible of my want of the learned languages, and prompted by an irresistible covetousness of knowledge, I commenced a series of studies in that way, and undertook the tediousness of the intricacies and the labor of grammar; I selected Lilly from the rest, all of which I got and repeated by heart. The task of repeating it all every day was impossible while I attended the school; so I divided it into portions; by which method it was pronounced thrice every week, and this I performed for years. “I next became acquainted with Camden’s Greek Grammar, which I also repeated in the same manner, _memoriter_. Thus instructed, I entered upon the Latin classics, whose allurements repaid my assiduities and my labors. I remember to have, at first, overhung five lines for a whole day; and never, in all the painful course of my reading, left any one passage till I did, or thought I did, perfectly comprehend it. “After I had accurately perused every one of the Latin classics, historians and poets, I went through the Greek Testament, first parsing every word as I proceeded; next I ventured upon Hesiod, Homer, Theocritus, Herodotus, Thucydides, and all the Greek tragedians: a tedious labor was this; but my former acquaintance with history lessened it extremely, because it threw light upon many passages, which without that assistance must have appeared obscure. “In the midst of these literary pursuits a man and horse from my good friend William Norton, Esq., came for me from Knaresborough, bearing that gentleman’s letter inviting me thither; and accordingly I repaired there in some part of the year 1734, and was, I believe, well accepted and esteemed there. Here, not satisfied with my former acquisitions, I prosecuted the attainment of Hebrew, and with indefatigable diligence. I had Buxtorff’s grammar, but that being perplexed, or not explicit enough, at least in my opinion at that time, I collected no less than eight or ten different grammars and thus one very often supplied the omissions of the others, and was, I found, of extraordinary advantage. Then I purchased the Bible in the original and read the whole Pentateuch, with an intention to go through the whole of it, which I attempted, but wanted time. “In April, I think the 18th, 1744, I went again to London, and agreed to teach the Latin and writing, for the Rev. Mr. Painblanc, in Piccadilly, which he, along with a salary, returned, by teaching me French; wherein I observed the pronunciation the most formidable part, at least to me, who had never before known a word of it. By continued application every night and every opportunity, I overcame this, and soon became a tolerable master of French. I remained in this situation two years and above.