Being asked if he could remember Queen Anne, 'He had (he said)
a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in
diamonds, and a long black hood.' This touch, however, was without
any effect. I ventured to say to him, in allusion to the political
principles in which he was educated, and of which he ever retained some
odour, that 'his mother had not carried him far enough; she should have
taken him to ROME.'
He was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver, a widow, who kept
a school for young children in Lichfield. He told me she could read the
black letter, and asked him to borrow for her, from his father, a bible
in that character. When he was going to Oxford, she came to take leave
of him, brought him, in the simplicity of her kindness, a present
of gingerbread, and said, he was the best scholar she ever had. He
delighted in mentioning this early compliment: adding, with a smile,
that 'this was as high a proof of his merit as he could conceive.' His
next instructor in English was a master, whom, when he spoke of him
to me, he familiarly called Tom Brown, who, said he, 'published a
spelling-book, and dedicated it to the UNIVERSE; but, I fear, no copy of
it can now be had.
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