But he need
have been under no such apprehension, as he proved a most efficient
teacher, and his pupils were on more than one occasion publicly
complimented for their knowledge of French. Meanwhile, he secured
the respect and friendship of all who knew him--fellow-professors
as well as pupils; and when the story of his struggles, his
difficulties, and his past history, became known to them, they
admired him more than ever.
Sir Samuel Romilly was not less indefatigable as a self-cultivator.
The son of a jeweller, descended from a French refugee, he received
little education in his early years, but overcame all his
disadvantages by unwearied application, and by efforts constantly
directed towards the same end. "I determined," he says, in his
autobiography, "when I was between fifteen and sixteen years of
age, to apply myself seriously to learning Latin, of which I, at
that time, knew little more than some of the most familiar rules of
grammar. In the course of three or four years, during which I thus
applied myself, I had read almost every prose writer of the age of
pure Latinity, except those who have treated merely of technical
subjects, such as Varro, Columella, and Celsus. I had gone three
times through the whole of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus.
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