immense advance on the one just left, and offered certain opportunities of intercourse with boys of better position and culture than Tom had known before. [59] "The Life of Thomas Cooper, Written by Himself." Hodder & Stoughton, 1872; p. 7. The boy must have made good use of his time at the Free School, for, it seems, he went to Daddy Briggs' academy as much in the character of a teacher as that of a pupil; and he says of this good-natured but not very accomplished master: "He took no school-fees of my mother, but employed me as an assistant, for about an hour each day, in teaching the younger children. He treated me less as a pupil than as a companion, and I became much attached to him. Yet he was never really a teacher to me. I made my way easily without help through Walkinghame, part of Bonnycastle, and got a little way into algebra before I left school." By this time he had acquired an intense thirst for reading, and eagerly sought out every book within reach. Now he borrowed the school-books of his companions and read them through, and now he resorted to the "circulating library," at the shop of an old lady who supplied him with writing materials, and, as a great favor, was allowed to read such books as were not immediately required for circulation; or, again, he seized upon the cheap issues of educational works which were beginning to make their appearance about this time, and were sold at the doors of the good Gainsborough folk by that important personage "the number man." At twelve years of age he had thus made the acquaintance of the classic English poets, had read "Cook's Voyages," the "Arabian Nights," the "Old English Baron," besides "a heap of other romances and novels it would require pages even to name." At thirteen years of age the poetry of Byron made a deep impression on his mind. Nothing in poetry but "Chevy Chase" had ever moved his heart before. Of "Childe Harold" and "Manfred" he says, "They seemed to create almost a new sense within me." Poetry was henceforth a passion with him; but few subjects came amiss: he read everything he could lay hold of.