Old and New Testament every Sunday, when I attended the
family to church. The series of my Latin authors was less strenuously
completed; but the acquisition, by inheritance or purchase, of the best
editions of Cicero, Quintilian, Livy, Tacitus, Ovid, &c. afforded a fair
prospect, which I seldom neglected. I persevered in the useful method of
abstracts and observations; and a single example may suffice, of a note
which had almost swelled into a work. The solution of a passage of Livy
(xxxviii. 38,) involved me in the dry and dark treatises of Greaves,
Arbuthnot, Hooper, Bernard, Eisenschmidt, Gronovius, La Barre, Freret,
&c.; and in my French essay (chap. 20,) I ridiculously send the reader
to my own manuscript remarks on the weights, coins, and measures of the
ancients, which were abruptly terminated by the militia drum.

As I am now entering on a more ample field of society and study, I
can only hope to avoid a vain and prolix garrulity, by overlooking the
vulgar crowd of my acquaintance, and confining myself to such intimate
friends among books and men, as are best entitled to my notice by their
own merit and reputation, or by the deep impression which they have
left on my mind. Yet I will embrace this occasion of recommending to the
young student a practice, which about this time I myself adopted. After
glancing my eye over the design and order of a new book, I suspended
the perusal till I had finished the task of self examination, till I
had revolved, in a solitary walk, all that I knew or believed, or had
thought on the subject of the whole work, or of some particular chapter:
I was then qualified to discern how much the author added to my original
stock; and I was sometimes satisfied by the agreement, I was sometimes
armed by the opposition of our ideas. The favourite companions of my
leisure were our English writers since the Revolution: they breathe the
spirit of reason and liberty; and they most seasonably contributed to
restore the purity of my own language, which had been corrupted by the
long use of a foreign idiom. By the judicious advice of Mr. Mallet, I
was directed to the writings of Swift and Addison; wit and simplicity
are their common attributes: but the style of Swift is supported by
manly original vigour; that of Addison is adorned by the female graces
of elegance and mildness. The old reproach, that no British altars had
been raised to the muse of history, was recently disproved by the first
perform