ol. Whether it were from natural intellect, or from my brain
having lain fallow, as it were, for so many years, or probably from the
two causes combined, I certainly learned almost by instinct. I read my
lessons once over and laid my book aside, for I knew it all. I had not
been six months at the school before I discovered that, in a thousand
instances, the affection of a father appeared towards me under the rough
crust of the Dominie. I think it was on the third day of the seventh
month that I afforded him a day of triumph and warming of his heart,
when he took me for the first time into his little study, and put the
Latin Accidence into my hands. I learnt my first lesson in a quarter of
an hour; and I remember well how that unsmiling, grave man looked into
my smiling eyes, parting the chestnut curls, which the matron would not
cut off, from my brows, and saying, "_Bene fecisti, Jacobe_." Many
times afterwards, when the lesson was over, he would fix his eyes upon
me, fall back on his chair, and make me recount all I could remember of
my former life, which was really nothing but a record of perceptions and
feelings. He _could_ attend to _me_, and as I related some early and
singular impression, some conjecture of what I saw, yet could not
comprehend, on the shore which I had never touched, he would rub his
hands with enthusiasm, and exclaim, "I have found a new book--an album,
whereon I may write the deeds of heroes and the words of sages.
_Carissime Jacobe_! how happy shall we be when we get into Virgil!" I
hardly need say that I loved him--I did so from my heart, and learned
with avidity to please him. I felt that I was of consequence--my
confidence in myself was unbounded. I walked proudly, yet I was not
vain. My school-fellows hated me, but they feared me as much for my own
prowess as my interest with the master; but still many were the bitter
gibes and innuendoes which I was obliged to hear as I sat down with them
to our meals. At other times I held communion with the Dominie, the
worthy old matron, and my books. We walked out every day, at first
attended by Mr Knapps the usher. The boys would not walk with me
without they were ordered, and if ordered, most unwillingly. Yet I had
given no cause of offence. The matron found it out, told the Dominie,
and after that the Dominie attended the boys and led me by the hand.

This was of the greatest advantage to me, as he answered all my
questions, which wer