r canvas at Portsmouth and Gosport lasted several days; but
the interruption of my studies was compensated in some degree by the
spectacle of English manners, and the acquisition of some practical
knowledge.

If in a more domestic or more dissipated scene my application was
somewhat relaxed, the love of knowledge was inflamed and gratified by
the command of books; and I compared the poverty of Lausanne with the
plenty of London. My father's study at Buriton was stuffed with much
trash of the last age, with much high church divinity and politics,
which have long since gone to their proper place: yet it contained some
valuable editions of the classics and the fathers, the choice, as it
should seem, of Mr. Law; and many English publications of the times had
been occasionally added. From this slender beginning I have gradually
formed a numerous and select library, the foundation of my works, and
the best comfort of my life, both at home and abroad. On the receipt of
the first quarter, a large share of my allowance was appropriated to
my literary wants. I cannot forget the joy with which I exchanged a
bank-note of twenty pounds for the twenty volumes of the Memoirs of
the Academy of Inscriptions; nor would it have been easy, by any other
expenditure of the same sum, to have procured so large and lasting a
fund of rational amusement. At a time when I most assiduously frequented
this school of ancient literature, I thus expressed my opinion of a
learned and various collection, which since the year 1759 has been
doubled in magnitude, though not in merit--"Une de ces societes, qui
ont mieux immortalise Louis XIV. qu un ambition souvent pernicieuse aux
hommes, commengoit deja ces recherches qui reunissent la justesse de
l'esprit, l'amenete & l'eruditlon: ou l'on voit iant des decouvertes,
et quelquefois, ce qui ne cede qu'a peine aux decouvertes, une ignorance
modeste et savante." The review of my library must be reserved for the
period of its maturity; but in this place I may allow myself to observe,
that I am not conscious of having ever bought a book from a motive of
ostentation, that every volume, before it was deposited on the shelf,
was either read or sufficiently examined, and that I soon adopted the
tolerating maxim of the elder Pliny, "nullum esse librum tam malum ut
non ex aliqua parte prodesset." I could not yet find leisure or courage
to renew the pursuit of the Greek language, excepting by reading the
lessons of the