a love of knowledge inherent in me, an emulative
spirit, and a thirst for fame, which disposition it was my father's care
to cherish. A too great consciousness of innate worth gave me a too
great degree of pride, but the endeavours of my instructor to inspire
humility were not all lost; and habitual reading, well-timed praise, and
the pleasures flowing from science, made the labours of study at length
my recreation.

My memory became remarkable; I am well read in the Scriptures, the
classics, and ancient history; was acquainted with geography; could draw;
learnt fencing, riding, and other necessary exercises.

My religion was Lutheran; but morality was taught me by my father, and by
the worthy man to whose care he committed the forming of my heart, whose
memory I shall ever hold in veneration. While a boy, I was enterprising
in all the tricks of boys, and exercised my wit in crafty excuses; the
warmth of my passions gave a satiric, biting cast to my writings, whence
it has been imagined, by those who knew but little of me, I was a
dangerous man; though, I am conscious, this was a false judgment.

A soldier himself, my father would have all his sons the same; thus, when
we quarrelled, we terminated our disputes with wooden sabres, and,
brandishing these, contested by blows for victory, while our father sat
laughing, pleased at our valour and address. This practice, and the
praises he bestowed, encouraged a disposition which ought to have been
counteracted.

Accustomed to obtain the prize, and be the hero of scholastic
contentions, I acquired the bad habit of disputation, and of imagining
myself a sage when little more than a boy. I became stubborn in
argument; hasty to correct others, instead of patiently attentive: and,
by presumption, continually liable to incite enmity. Gentle to my
inferiors, but impatient of contradiction, and proud of resisting power,
I may hence date, the origin of all my evils.

How might a man, imbued with the heroic principles of liberty, hope for
advancement and happiness, under the despotic and iron Government of
Frederic? I was taught neither to know nor to avoid, but to despise the
whip of slavery. Had I learnt hypocrisy, craft, and meanness, I had long
since become field-marshal, had been in possession of my Hungarian
estates, and had not passed the best years of my life in the dungeons of
Magdeburg. I was addicted to no vice: I laboured in the cause of
science, honour, and v