besides his "easy" French, he had done something in Hebrew, could read his Greek Testament, and found delight in the Latin authors, such as Cæsar, Virgil, Tacitus, and Lactantius. This is no mean story to tell of the accomplishments of a self-taught shoemaker, who has never earned more than ten shillings per week. [64] "Life of Thomas Cooper," p. 67. School-teaching was a congenial employment for one so fond of study and so apt to teach as Thomas Cooper. He threw his whole soul into the work, and succeeded in establishing a first-rate school of its class; and _that_ class of school was certainly a vast improvement on the Free School of his own early days. Everybody in Gainsborough knew the studious shoemaker who had learned four languages at the cobbler's stall, read as much, or more, than any one in the town of his own age, had a marvellous memory, and could repeat the whole of _Hamlet_ and the first four books of the "Paradise Lost!" Besides all this, he was known and esteemed for a steady young man, who, though he might incur a little suspicion among the strictly religious folk by his neglect of public worship, was guilty of no waste of time or money in vicious company and riotous living. And so pupils flocked in; a hundred names were entered on his books by the end of the first year, and the school prospered to his heart's content. Nor was the confidence of parents misplaced; never, surely, did a teacher give himself more completely to his work. He gave even more than was bargained for, drilling all the boys in Latin grammar, and carrying them on as far as possible in the higher branches of arithmetic. Five years were thus spent most usefully and happily at Gainsborough, after which he removed from the old town and settled in the cathedral city of Lincoln.