“At this time,” he continues, “I possessed but one book in the world: it was a treatise on algebra, given to me by a young woman, who had found it in a lodging-house. I considered it as a treasure; but it was a treasure locked up; for it supposed the reader to be well acquainted with simple equations, and I knew nothing of the matter. My master’s son had purchased Fenning’s Introduction: this was precisely what I wanted; but he carefully concealed it from me, and I was indebted to chance alone for stumbling upon his hiding-place. I sat up for the greatest part of several nights successively, and, before he suspected that his treatise was discovered, had completely mastered it. I could now enter upon my own, and that carried me pretty far into the science. This was not done without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one; pen, ink, and paper, therefore, were for the most part as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was indeed a resource; but the utmost caution and secresy were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrote my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.” Persevering under these untoward difficulties, he at length obtained some alleviation of his poverty. Having attempted to write some verses, his productions were received with applause, and sometimes, he adds, “with favors more substantial: little collections were now and then made, and I have received sixpence in an evening. To one who had long lived in the absolute want of money, such a resource seemed a Peruvian mine. I furnished myself by degrees with paper, &c., and what was of more importance, with books of geometry, and of the higher branches of algebra, which I cautiously concealed. Poetry, even at this time, was no amusement of mine--it was subservient to other purposes; and I only had recourse to it when I wanted money for my mathematical pursuits.” Gifford’s master having capriciously put a stop to these literary recreations, and taken away all his books and papers, he was greatly mortified, if not reduced to a state of despair. “I look back,” he says, “on that part of my life which immediately followed this event, with little satisfaction: it was a period of gloom and savage unsociability. By degrees I sunk into a kind of corporeal torpor; or, if roused into activity by the spirit of youth, wasted the exertion in splenetic and vexatious tricks, which alienated the few acquaintances which compassion had yet left me.”