Ch. II.] BOYHOOD. 9 



simply a blank. During my whole life I have been singularly 

 incapable of mastering any language. Especial attention was 

 paid to verse-making, and this I could never do well. I had 

 many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses, 

 which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I 

 could work into any subject. Much attention was paid to 

 learning by heart the lessons of the previous day ; this I could 

 effect with great facility, learning forty or fifty lines of Virgil 

 or Homer, whilst I was in morning chapel ; but this exercise 

 was utterly useless, for every verse was forgotten in forty-eight 

 hours. I was not idle, and with the exception of versification, 

 generally worked conscientiously at my classics, not using 

 cribs. The sole pleasure I ever received from such studies, 

 was from some of the odes of Horace, which I admired 

 greatly. 



When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low 

 in it ; and I believe that I was considered by all my masters 

 and by my father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the 

 common standard in intellect. To my deep mortification my 

 father once said to me, " You care for nothing but shooting, 

 dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself 

 and all your family." But my father, who was the kindest 

 man I ever knew, and whose memory I love with all my heart, 

 must have been angry and somewhat unjust when he used such 

 words. 



Looking back as well as I can at my character during my 

 school life, the only qualities which at this period promised 

 well for the future, were, that I had strong and diversified 

 tastes, much zeal for whatever interested me, and a keen 

 pleasure in understanding any complex subject or thing. I 

 was taught Euclid by a private tutor, and I distinctly remem- 

 ber the intense satisfaction which the clear geometrical proofs 

 gave me. I remember with equal distinctness the delight 

 which my uncle (the father of Francis Gal ton) gave me by 

 explaining the principle of the vernier of a barometer, With 

 respect to diversified tastes, independently of science, I was 

 fond of reading various books, and I used to sit for hours 

 reading the historical plays of Shakespeare, generally in an old 

 window in the thick walls of the school. I read also other 

 poetry, such as Thomson's Seasons, and the recently pub- 

 lished poems of Byron and Scott. I mention this because later 

 in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from 

 poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. In connection 

 with pleasure from poetry, I may add that in 1822 a vivid 

 delight in scenery was first awakened in my mind, during a 



