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 
by 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 liad endowed )jim with that in- 
berent desire of knowledge, that capacity, and ’that 
t'igour and activity of mind, which, united as they 
Were with a robust constitution of body, enabled 
bim 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 
bis father discovering with deliglit the early pro- 
ffltses of genius, judiciously removed whatever might 
cramp its growth, and avoided imposing upon him 
Us a task, those instructions which he seemed so 
u^ell 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 for the common prizes of the 
public schools, he found time to attend to the study 
of di awing, of architecture and perspective : lie had 
a taste for mensuration, and for turning; and 
t e manipulation of the difierent tools of these me- 
