little Assistance he receiv'd from it, for as he never was favour'd with any Academical Learning, so it was no Secret to those he most familiarly conversed with, that his Knowledge of the _Classics_ was very slender and imperfect: Tho', with humble Submission to the Judgment of those Gentlemen who are such bigotted sticklers for the _Ancients_, he had something in the Force and Sprightliness of his own Imagination, that more than made amends for the want of it. It was while he was at this School, that his Father, _the Earl Rivers_, died, who had several Times made Enquiry after him, but could never get any satisfactory Account of him; and when on his Death-Bed, he more strenuously demanded to know what was become of him, in order to make him a Partaker in the Distribution of that very handsome Estate he left among his natural Children, he was positively told he was dead: Thus was he, whilst, (as he expressed it himself) _legally_ the Son of one _Earl_, and _naturally_ the Son of another, by the Management of his own Mother, denied the Benefit of belonging to either of them. In a Piece that was printed, but, for some weighty Reasons, never made publick, he tells us, That when he was about _Fifteen_, her Affection began to awake; and he was sollicited to be bound Apprentice to a _Shoemaker_, which Proposal he rejected with Scorn, for he had now by the Death of his Nurse, discover'd some Letters of his Grandmother's, and by those Means the whole Contrivance that had been carried on to conceal his Birth. And being now entirely destitute of every the least Necessary of Life, to whom was it so Natural to apply to as a Mother? Can a Mother forget her sucking Child! But in this Instance Nature seem'd to be inverted, the Mother upon no Terms would endure the Sight of her Son, the Son on all Occasions expressing his Affection for his Mother, and the strong Desire he had of seeing her; "While Nature acted so weakly," _says an ingenious Gentleman, writing in Mr._ Savage's _Behalf_, "on the Humanity of the Parent, she seems on the Son's Side to have doubled her usual Influence. Even the most shocking personal Repulses, and a Severity of Contempt and Injuries received at her Hands, through the whole Course of his Life, were not able to eraze from his Heart the Impressions of his filial Duty; nor, which is much more strange, of his Affection; I have known him walk three or four Times in a dark Evening, through the Street this Mother lives in, only for the melancholy Pleasure of looking up at her Windows, in hopes to catch a Moment's Sight of her as she might cross the Room by Candle-light."