i S 13-36.] EARLY YEARS. 11 



applied. Looking back to this period, Livingstone might 

 have said in the words of the old Scotch ballad : — 



" little knew my mother, 

 The day she cradled me, 

 The lands that I should wander o'er, 

 The death that I should dee." 



At the age of nine he got a New Testament from 

 his Sunday-school teacher for repeating the 119th Psalm 

 on two successive evenings with only five errors, a proof 

 that perseverance was bred in his very bone. 



His parents were poor, and at the age of ten he was 

 put to work in the factory as a piecer, that his earnings 

 might aid his mother in the struggle with the wolf which 

 had followed the family from the island that bore its 

 name. After serving a number of years as a piecer, he 

 was promoted to be a spinner. Greatly to his mother's 

 delight, the first half-crown he ever earned was laid by 

 him in her lap. Livingstone has told us that with a part 

 of his first week's wages he purchased Ruddiman's Rudi- 

 ments of Latin, and pursued the study of that language 

 with unabated ardour for many years afterwards at an 

 evening class which had been opened between the 

 hours of eight and ten. " The dictionary part of my 

 labours was followed up till twelve o'clock, or later, if my 

 mother did not interfere by jumping up and snatching 

 the books out of my hands. I had to be back in the 

 factory by six in the morning, and continue my work, 

 with intervals for breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock 

 at night. I read in this way many of the classical 

 authors, and knew Virgil and Horace better at sixteen 

 than I do now." x 



In his reading, he tells us that he devoured all the 

 books that came into his hands but novels, and that his 

 plan was to place the book on a portion of the spinning- 

 jenny, so that he could catch sentence after sentence as 



1 Missionary Travels, p. 3. 



