I generally read these books in a garret in our house in George
Lane, which was indefinitely appropriated to my brother and myself. I
find that I copied out Vince's Conic Sections in February, 1819. The
first book that I copied was the small geometrical treatise on
Trigonometry, in May, 1817: to this I was urged by old Mr Ransome,
upon my complaining that I could not purchase the book: and it was no
bad lesson of independence to me."
During the same period 1817-1819 he was occupied at school on
translations into blank verse from the Aeneid and Iliad, and read
through the whole of Sophocles very carefully.
The classical knowledge which he thus gained at school and
subsequently at Cambridge was sound, and he took great pleasure in it:
throughout his life he made a practice of keeping one or other of the
Classical Authors at hand for occasional relaxation. He terminated his
schooling in June 1819. Shortly afterwards his father left Colchester
and went to reside at Bury St Edmund's. The Autobiography proceeds as
follows:
"Mr Clarkson was at one time inclined to recommend me to go to St
Peter's College (which had been much enriched by a bequest from a Mr
Gisborne). But on giving some account of me to his friend Mr James
D.
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