His father was a man of extreme benevolence, and strict integrity; warm in his affections, and cheerful in his disposition. Under the influence of his precepts and example the moral character of Samuel Romilly was formed: for his mother, from an habitual state of bad health, was incapable of superintending the early education of her children, which was consequently much neglected. Samuel and his brother were sent to a common day-school, the master of which pretended to teach Latin, although really ignorant of that language. It was at one time contemplated to train him to commercial business in the house of the Fludyers, who were then considerable merchants in the city, and near relations of his family: but the sudden death of both the partners of that house put an end to these projects; and in the absence of other occupation, his father employed him in keeping his accounts, and sometimes receiving orders from customers. He had thus leisure to cultivate tastes more congenial to his nature; and at the age of fourteen he commenced that self-education, to which he owed all his future success. Every volume of his father’s little collection, and of the circulating libraries in the neighbourhood, was anxiously and attentively perused. Ancient and modern history, treatises on science, works of criticism, travels, and English poetry, were among his favourite books. But a passion for poetry soon predominated over other tastes; and from admiring the poetry of others he aspired at becoming a poet himself. He wrote eclogues, songs, and satires, translated passages from French poets, and imitated English ones; and resolving to devote himself steadily to literature he hoped to acquire fame as an author. He now set about learning Latin in earnest; and was soon able, by dint of unremitting assiduity, and with some assistance from a private tutor, to understand the easier Latin authors. In the course of about three years he had read through Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus three times; he had studied almost the whole of Cicero, as well as the principal poets; he had gone through the Latin translations of the Greek historians, orators, and philosophers; and had made numerous translations from the Latin classics into English, which he retranslated into Latin. This double exercise he found to be eminently useful in rendering him, what he at length became, a very excellent scholar. In addition to these studies, he attended lectures on natural philosophy, painting, architecture, and anatomy.