n his circumstances. But
there was no relaxation in the education of his children, and at the
beginning of 1814 George Biddell was sent to the endowed Grammar
School at Colchester, then kept by the Rev. E. Crosse, and remained
there till the summer of 1819, when he went to College. The
Autobiography proceeds as follows:

"I became here a respectable scholar in Latin and Greek, to the extent
of accurate translation, and composition of prose Latin: in regard to
Latin verses I was I think more defective than most scholars who take
the same pains, but I am not much ashamed of this, for I entirely
despise the system of instruction in verse composition.

"My father on some occasion had to go to London and brought back for
me a pair of 12-inch globes. They were invaluable to me. The first
stars which I learnt from the celestial globe were alpha Lyrae, alpha
Aquilae, alpha Cygni: and to this time I involuntarily regard these
stars as the birth-stars of my astronomical knowledge. Having
somewhere seen a description of a Gunter's quadrant, I perceived that
I could construct one by means of the globe: my father procured for me
a board of the proper shape with paper pasted on it, and on this I
traced the lines of the quadrant.

"My command of geometry was tolerably complete, and one way in which I
frequently amused myself was by making paper models (most carefully
drawn in outline) which were buttoned together without any cement or
sewing. Thus I made models, not only of regular solids, regularly
irregular solids, cones cut in all directions so as to shew the conic
sections, and the like, but also of six-gun batteries, intrenchments
and fortresses of various kinds &c.

"From various books I had learnt the construction of the steam-engine:
the older forms from the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; newer forms
from modern books. The newest form however (with the sliding steam
valve) I learnt from a 6-horse engine at Bawtrey's brewery (in which
Mr Keeling the father of my schoolfellow had acquired a
partnership). I frequently went to look at this engine, and on one
occasion had the extreme felicity of examining some of its parts when
it was opened for repair.

"In the mean time my education was advancing at Playford. The first
record, I believe, which I have of my attention to mechanics there is
the plan of a threshing-machine which I drew. But I was acquiring
valuable information of all kinds from the Encyclopaedia Londinensis,