hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of
offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my
fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient, for
my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous,
or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here
speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent
discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt,
than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can
return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of
guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the
natural affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion from
them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an
antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man's
understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of
running about on holidays, and playing with my fellows, I was wont to
steal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book,
or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I
was then, too, so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters could
never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn,
without book, the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed
with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual
exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the
same mind as I am now--which, I confess, I wonder at myself--may
appear at the latter end of an ode which I made when I was but
thirteen years old, and which was then printed, with many other
verses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this part which I here
set down, if a very little were corrected, I should hardly now be much
ashamed.

This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
Th' unknown are better than ill-known.
Rumour can ope the grave;
Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage, more
Than palace, and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.
My garden painted o'er
With Nature's ha