Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, Vol. 1

The boy’s education was fully as commonplace as his birth. His father had intended him for the church, not a bad guess at the youth’s talents for religious instruction.

But financial embarrassments prohibited a long and expensive education; and when fifteen or sixteen years old, circumstances compelled the diligent and godly Samuel to earn his living at business. Like Shakespeare, he had only the book – training of the common school; he knew no language but his own; and although as a printer he had a bowing acquaintance with contemporary literature, he was never, to his bitter and lasting regret, either a learned or a well-read man. The Latin quotations in his books were prompted by his friends.