Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy | Page 9

admirable book The Speaker, but it does not appear that Latin and
Greek were attended to at this school. He records that at this time he
learned an infinity of snatches of songs, small romances, &c., which his
powerful memory retained most accurately throughout his life. He was
no hand at active play: but was notorious for his skill in constructing
guns for shooting peas and arrows, and other mechanical contrivances.
At home he relates that he picked up a wonderful quantity of learning
from his father's books. He read and remembered much poetry from
such standard authors as Milton, Pope, Gay, Gray, Swift, &c., which
was destined to prove in after life an invaluable relaxation for his mind.
But he also studied deeply an excellent Cyclopaedia called a Dictionary
of Arts and Sciences in three volumes folio, and learned from it much
about ship-building, navigation, fortification, and many other subjects.

During this period his valuable friendship with his uncle Arthur Biddell
commenced. Arthur Biddell was a prosperous farmer and valuer at
Playford near Ipswich. He was a well-informed and able man, of
powerful and original mind, extremely kind and good-natured, and
greatly respected throughout the county. In the Autobiography of
George Biddell Airy he states as follows:
"I do not remember precisely when it was that I first visited my uncle
Arthur Biddell. I think it was in a winter: certainly as early as the
winter of 1812--13. Here I found a friend whose society I could enjoy,
and I entirely appreciated and enjoyed the practical, mechanical, and at
the same time speculative and enquiring talents of Arthur Biddell. He
had a library which, for a person in middle life, may be called excellent,
and his historical and antiquarian knowledge was not small. After
spending one winter holiday with him, it easily came to pass that I
spent the next summer holiday with him: and at the next winter holiday,
finding that there was no precise arrangement for my movements, I
secretly wrote him a letter begging him to come with a gig to fetch me
home with him: he complied with my request, giving no hint to my
father or mother of my letter: and from that time, one-third of every
year was regularly spent with him till I went to College. How great was
the influence of this on my character and education I cannot tell. It was
with him that I became acquainted with the Messrs Ransome, W.
Cubitt the civil engineer (afterwards Sir W. Cubitt), Bernard Barton,
Thomas Clarkson (the slave-trade abolitionist), and other persons
whose acquaintance I have valued highly. It was also with him that I
became acquainted with the works of the best modern poets, Scott,
Byron, Campbell, Hogg, and others: as also with the Waverley Novels
and other works of merit."
In 1813 William Airy lost his appointment of Collector of Excise and
was in consequence very much straitened in his circumstances. But
there was no relaxation in the education of his children, and at the
beginning of 1814 George Biddell was sent to the endowed Grammar
School at Colchester, then kept by the Rev. E. Crosse, and remained
there till the summer of 1819, when he went to College. The
Autobiography proceeds as follows:

"I became here a respectable scholar in Latin and Greek, to the extent
of accurate translation, and composition of prose Latin: in regard to
Latin verses I was I think more defective than most scholars who take
the same pains, but I am not much ashamed of this, for I entirely
despise the system of instruction in verse composition.
"My father on some occasion had to go to London and brought back for
me a pair of 12-inch globes. They were invaluable to me. The first stars
which I learnt from the celestial globe were alpha Lyrae, alpha Aquilae,
alpha Cygni: and to this time I involuntarily regard these stars as the
birth-stars of my astronomical knowledge. Having somewhere seen a
description of a Gunter's quadrant, I perceived that I could construct
one by means of the globe: my father procured for me a board of the
proper shape with paper pasted on it, and on this I traced the lines of
the quadrant.
"My command of geometry was tolerably complete, and one way in
which I frequently amused myself was by making paper models (most
carefully drawn in outline) which were buttoned together without any
cement or sewing. Thus I made models, not only of regular solids,
regularly irregular solids, cones cut in all directions so as to shew the
conic sections, and the like, but also of six-gun batteries, intrenchments
and fortresses of various kinds &c.
"From various books I had learnt the construction of the steam-engine:
the older forms from the Dictionary of Arts and