his mind
the seeds of later moralising. He attacked unsuccessfully some of
Voltaire's historical works, and even read _Candide_, with what emotions
we are not told. The servants meanwhile filled his fancy with ghosts and
hobgoblins. To the end of his days he was still haunted by the imaginary
horrors in the dark,[204] and he says[205] that they had been among the
torments of his life. He had few companions of his own age, and though
he was 'not unhappy' and was never subjected to corporal punishment, he
felt more awe than affection for his father. His mother, to whom he was
strongly attached, died on 6th January 1759.

Bentham was thus a strangely precocious, and a morbidly sensitive child,
when it was decided in 1755 to send him to Westminster. The headmaster,
Dr. Markham, was a friend of his father's. Westminster, he says,
represented 'hell' for him when Browning Hill stood for paradise. The
instruction 'was wretched,' The fagging system was a 'horrid despotism.'
The games were too much for his strength. His industry, however, enabled
him to escape the birch, no small achievement in those days,[206] and he
became distinguished in the studies such as they were. He learned the
catechism by heart, and was good at Greek and Latin verses, which he
manufactured for his companions as well as himself. He had also the
rarer accomplishment, acquired from his early tutor, of writing more
easily in French than English. Some of his writings were originally
composed in French. He was, according to Bowring, elected to one of the
King's scholarships when between nine and ten, but as 'ill-usage was
apprehended' the appointment was declined.[207] He was at a
boarding-house, and the life of the boys on the foundation was probably
rougher. In June 1760 his father took him to Oxford, and entered him as
a commoner at Queen's College. He came into residence in the following
October, when only twelve years old. Oxford was not more congenial than
Westminster. He had to sign the Thirty-nine Articles in spite of
scruples suppressed by authority. The impression made upon him by this
childish compliance never left him to the end of his life.[208] His
experience resembled that of Adam Smith and Gibbon. Laziness and vice
were prevalent. A gentleman commoner of Queen's was president of a
'hellfire club,' and brutal horseplay was still practised upon the
weaker lads. Bentham, still a schoolboy in age, continued his schoolboy
course. He wrote Latin ve