IIIS CHILDHOOD AND EARLY HOME. 23 



of the farms, and were in general triflers, and some of them 

 dishonest. 



Mr. Silliman prepared for college under the tuition 

 of his pastor, Rev. Andrew Eliot. During the occu- 

 pation of Boston by the British, a number of fam- 

 ilies had left that place and taken refuge in Fairfield. 

 Among them was the family of Rev. AndYew Eliot 

 (Sen.), D. D., a patriotic and faithful minister, who 

 himself remained in Boston in the discharge of his 

 appropriate duties. Some of the persons who thus 

 resorted to Fairfield found a permanent home there; 

 and among them the younger Mr. Eliot, who became 

 pastor of the church. 



Mr. Eliot was a thorough scholar, and was so fully imbued 

 with classical zeal that he was not always patient of our slow 

 progress. He, however, devoted himself with great zeal 

 and fidelity to our instruction in all good learning that was 

 adapted to our age and destination, and carried us safely 

 through. He was most faithful during the more than two 

 years that we were his private pupils, and his only pupils, 



except his own children Mr. Eliot took great 



delight in reading aloud to us from the JSneid. Being 

 excited and animated both by the poetry and the story, he 

 evidently enjoyed the subject, and would fain have imparted 

 to us a portion of his own enthusiasm. Virgil's works were 

 pleasant to me, even from this early period ; and after I 

 became sufficiently familiar with the language and the 

 structure both of the grammar and the verse, they were to 

 me an agreeable study. 



We did not find the Orations of Cicero equally captivat- 

 ing as the epic verse of Virgil. Those beautiful allusions 

 to natural scenery and physical facts and events, which 

 abound in the writings of Virgil, had little place in forensic 

 pleadings and popular appeals. It was also more difficult 



