Being boarded with Mr. Eddowes, a very sociable and sensible man, and at the same time the person of the greatest property in the congregation, and who was fond of music, I was induced to learn to play a little on the English flute, as the easiest instrument; and though I was never a proficient in it, my playing contributed more or less to my amusement many years of my life. I would recommend the knowledge and practice of music to all studious persons; and it will be better for them, if, like myself, they should have no very fine ear, or exquisite taste; as by this means they will be more easily pleased, and be less apt to be offended when the performances they hear are but indifferent. At Nantwich I had hardly any literary acquaintance besides Mr. Brereton, a clergyman in the neighbourhood, who had a taste for astronomy, philosophy, and literature in general. I often slept at his house, in a room to which he gave my name. But his conduct afterwards was unworthy of his profession. Of dissenting ministers I saw most of Mr. Keay of Whitchurch, and Dr. Harwood, who lived and had a school at Congleton, preaching alternately at Leek and Wheelock, the latter place about ten miles from Nantwich. Being both of us schoolmasters, and having in some respect the same pursuits, we made exchanges for the sake of spending a Sunday evening together every six weeks in the summer time. He was a good classical scholar, and a very entertaining companion. In my congregation there was (out of the house in which I was boarded) hardly more than one family in which I could spend a leisure hour with much satisfaction, and that was Mr. James Caldwall’s, a scotchman. Indeed, several of the travelling Scotchmen who frequented the place, but made no long stay at any time, were men of very good sense; and what I thought extraordinary, not one of them was at all Calvinistical. My engagements in teaching allowed me but little time for composing any thing while I was at Nantwich. There, however, I recomposed my _Observations on the character and reasoning of the apostle Paul_, as mentioned before. For the use of my school I then wrote an _English grammar_[5] on a new plan, leaving out all such technical terms as were borrowed from other languages, and had no corresponding modifications in ours, as the future tense, &c. and to this I afterwards subjoined _Observations for the use of proficients in the language_,[6] from the notes which I collected at Warrington; where, being tutor in the languages and Belles Letters, I gave particular attention to the English language, and intended to have composed a large treatise on the structure and present state of it. But dropping the scheme in another situation, I lately gave such parts of my collection as I had made no use of to Mr. Herbert Croft of Oxford, on his communicating to me his design of compiling a Dictionary and Grammar of our language. [5] Printed in 1761.