ing George: his patron, a loyal
subject, dismissed him with some reluctance, and a decent reward; and
how the poor man ended his days I have never been able to learn. Mr.
John Kirkby is the author of two small volumes; the Life of Automathes
(London, 1745), and an English and Latin Grammar (London, 1746); which,
as a testimony of gratitude, he dedicated (Nov. 5th, 1745) to my father.
The books are before me: from them the pupil may judge the preceptor;
and, upon the whole, his judgment will not be unfavourable. The grammar
is executed with accuracy and skill, and I know not whether any better
existed at the time in our language: but the Life of Automathes aspires
to the honours of a philosophical fiction. It is the story of a youth,
the son of a ship-wrecked exile, who lives alone on a desert island
from infancy to the age of manhood. A hind is his nurse; he inherits a
cottage, with many useful and curious instruments; some ideas remain of
the education of his two first years; some arts are borrowed from the
beavers of a neighbouring lake; some truths are revealed in supernatural
visions. With these helps, and his own industry, Automathes becomes a
self-taught though speechless philosopher, who had investigated with
success his own mind, the natural world, the abstract sciences, and the
great principles of morality and religion. The author is not entitled
to the merit of invention, since he has blended the English story of
Robinson Crusoe with the Arabian romance of Hai Ebn Yokhdan, which he
might have read in the Latin version of Pocock. In the Automathes I
cannot praise either the depth of thought or elegance of style; but the
book is not devoid of entertainment or instruction; and among several
interesting passages, I would select the discovery of fire, which
produces by accidental mischief the discovery of conscience. A man who
had thought so much on the subjects of language and education was surely
no ordinary preceptor: my childish years, and his hasty departure,
prevented me from enjoying the full benefit of his lessons; but they
enlarged my knowledge of arithmetic, and left me a clear impression of
the English and Latin rudiments.

In my ninth year (Jan., 1746), in a lucid interval of comparative
health, my father adopted the convenient and customary mode of English
education; and I was sent to Kingston-upon-Thames, to a school of about
seventy boys, which was kept by Dr. Wooddeson and his assistants. Every
time