Here, by the time I was twelve years old, I had risen into the upper
school, and could make bold with Eutropius and Caesar--by aid of an
English version--and as much as six lines of Ovid. Some even said that
I might, before manhood, rise almost to the third form, being of a
perservering nature; albeit, by full consent of all (except my mother),
thick-headed. But that would have been, as I now perceive, an ambition
beyond a farmer's son; for there is but one form above it, and that made
of masterful scholars, entitled rightly 'monitors'. So it came to
pass, by the grace of God, that I was called away from learning,
whilst sitting at the desk of the junior first in the upper school, and
beginning the Greek verb [Greek word].
My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never could have learned
[Greek word], ten pages further on, being all he himself could manage,
with plenty of stripes to help him. I know that he hath more head than
I--though never will he have such body; and am thankful to have stopped
betimes, with a meek and wholesome head-piece.
But if you doubt of my having been there, because now I know so little,
go and see my name, 'John Ridd,' graven on that very form. Forsooth,
from the time I was strong enough to open a knife and to spell my name,
I began to grave it in the oak, first of the block whereon I sate, and
then of the desk in front of it, according as I was promoted from one to
other of them: and there my grandson reads it now, at this present time
of writing, and hath fought a boy for scoffing at it--'John Ridd his
name'--and done again in 'winkeys,' a mischievous but cheerful device,
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