xxii NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
sufificiently shows. His mother was one of the Etty family, a 
relative of the great painter, who was born at York. 
Spruce appears to have been educated wholly by his father. 
He was an only child, but his mother died while he was young, 
and when he was about fourteen his father married again, and 
had a family of eight daughters, only two of whom survived 
their half-brother. This circumstance rendered him unable to 
do anything for his son but- help him to follow his own profession, 
with which object Spruce took lessons in Latin and Greek from 
an old schoolmaster named Langdale, who had been educated 
for the priesthood and whose scholarship was of a high order. 
His influence may be seen in some of Spruce's letters to Mr. 
Borrer and Mr. Bentham, when he has occasion to discuss 
questions of Latin construction, being always able to give reasons 
or quote authorities in support of his own views. 
Although he disclaimed any linguistic ability or love of 
philology, he evidently had a considerable natural aptitude for 
languages, since he not only taught himself to read and write 
French fairly well, but in after years was able to acquire the 
Portuguese and Spanish languages with great facility, so as to be 
able to write them grammatically as well as to speak them ; and 
also to acquire some colloquial skill in three different Indian 
languages — the Lingoa Geral, Barre, and Quichua — which, in one 
case, was probably the means of saving his life. 
He appears to have remained at home, studying and assisting 
his father, till he was of age, about which time he became tutor 
in a school at Haxby, four miles north of York, and a year or 
two later (at the end of 1839) obtained the post of mathematical 
master at the Collegiate School at York, which he retained till 
the school itself was given up, at midsummer of 1844. At this 
time he was quite undecided as to his future, and made some 
efforts to get another position of the same kind. One such 
opportunity occurred, with a fairly liberal salary, but he found it 
would involve residence in the school, with supervision of the 
boys out of school hours, so as to leave him little or no leisure ; 
and as this was very distasteful to him, besides involving too 
much mental strain for his very delicate health, he gave up the 
idea. In fact, during the whole time he had been at York he had 
had repeated illnesses, especially in the winter. His lungs were 
affected, and he believed that he should not have lived another 
year if he had continued at school-work, the confinement and 
mental worries of which were very prejudicial to his constitution. 
In the next winter he wrote that he " was wearing a perpetual 
blister and found much benefit from it." In the following year 
