MEMOIR OF CAMPER. 19 



cultivated them, and was always ready to extend a 

 delicate and generous liberality to such artists as re- 

 quired it. 



Young Camper was, no doubt, greatly indebted 

 for his success to the fortunate circumstances in 

 which he was placed in early life, being surrounded 

 Dy men of enlarged and cultivated understandings, 

 eminent for their taste as well as their learning, 

 and having at the same time every incentive to ex- 

 ertion that a careful and judicious education could 

 supply. Nature had endowed him with that in- 

 herent desire of knowledge, that capacity, and that 

 vigour and activity of mind, which, united as they 

 were with a robust constitution of body, enabled 

 ^im to reap the full benefit of his situation. He 

 gave very early promise of those mental faculties 

 which lay the foundation of future eminence ; and 

 his father discovering with delight the early pro- 

 mises of genius, judiciously removed whatever might 

 cramp its growth, and avoided imposing upon him 

 as a task, those instructions which he seemed so 

 well inclined to acquire and pursue as an amuse- 

 ment. 



His love of knowledge kept pace with his years. 

 Whilst assiduously prosecuting the ordinary pursuits 

 of youth, and contending foi the common prizes of the 

 public schools, he found time to attend to the study 

 of drawing, of architecture and perspective : he had 

 also a taste for mensuration, and for turning; and 

 the manipulation of the different tools of these me- 



