ers of
the Devizes, Blandford, and Southampton, I always secured a separate
lodging, and the necessary books; and in the summer of 1762, while the
new militia was raising, I enjoyed at Buriton two or three months of
literary repose. In forming a new plan of study, I hesitated between the
mathematics and the Greek language; both of which I had neglected
since my return from Lausanne. I consulted a learned and friendly
mathematician, Mr. George Scott, a pupil of de Moivre; and his map of a
country which I have never explored, may perhaps be more serviceable to
others. As soon as I had given the preference to Greek, the example of
Scaliger and my own reason determined me on the choice of Homer, the
father of poetry, and the Bible of the ancients: but Scaliger ran
through the Iliad in one and twenty days; and I was not dissatisfied
with my own diligence for performing the same labour in an equal number
of weeks. After the first difficulties were surmounted, the language of
nature and harmony soon became easy and familiar, and each day I sailed
upon the ocean with a brisker gale and a more steady course.

{Passage in Greek}

Ilias, A 481.

--Fair wind, and blowing fresh,
Apollo sent them; quick they rear'd the mast,
Then spread th'unsullied canvas to the gale,
And the wind fill'd it. Roar'd the sable flood
Around the bark, that ever as she went
Dash'd wide the brine, and scudded swift away.
COWPER'S Homer.

In the study of a poet who has since become the most intimate of my
friends, I successively applied many passages and fragments of Greek
writers; and among these I shall notice a life of Homer, in the Oposcula
Mythologica of Gale, several books of the geography of Strabo, and the
entire treatise of Longinus, which, from the title and the style, is
equally worthy of the epithet of sublime. My grammatical skill was
improved, my vocabulary was enlarged; and in the militia I acquired a
just and indelible knowledge of the first of languages. On every march,
in every journey, Horace was always in my pocket, and often in my hand:
but I should not mention his two critical epistles, the amusement of a
morning, had they not been accompanied by the elaborate commentary
of Dr. Hurd, now Bishop of Worcester. On the interesting subjects of
composition and imitation of epic and dramatic poetry, I presumed to
think for myself; and thirty close-written pages in folio could scarcely
comprise my full and