In an address delivered by Governor Everett, before a Mechanics\' Association, in Boston, 1837, he introduced a letter from Elihu Burritt, a native of Connecticut, and then a resident of Worcester, Massachusetts, of which the following is a copy:—

"I was the youngest of many brethren, and my parents were poor. My means of education were limited to the advantages of a district school, and those again were circumscribed by my father\'s death, which deprived me, at the age of fifteen, of those scanty opportunities which I had previously enjoyed.

"A few months after his decease, I apprenticed myself to a blacksmith in my native village. Thither I carried an indomitable taste for reading, which I had previously acquired through the medium of the society library,—all the historical works in which I had at that time perused. At the expiration of a little more than half my apprenticeship, I suddenly conceived the idea of studying Latin.

"Through the assistance of an elder brother, who had himself obtained a collegiate education by his own exertions, I completed my Virgil during the evenings of one winter. After some time devoted to Cicero, and a few other Latin authors, I commenced[Pg 109] the Greek: at this time it was necessary that I should devote every hour of daylight, and a part of the evening, to the duties of my apprenticeship.

"Still I carried my Greek grammar in my hat, and often found a moment, when I was heating some large iron, when I could place my book open before me against the chimney of my forge, and go through with tupto, tupteis, tuptei, unperceived by my fellow-apprentices. At evening I sat down, unassisted, to the Iliad of Homer, twenty books of which measured my progress in that language during the evenings of another winter.

"I next turned to the modern languages, and was much gratified to learn that my knowledge of Latin furnished me with a key to the literature of most of the languages of Europe. This circumstance gave a new impulse to the desire of acquainting myself with the philosophy, derivation, and affinity of the different European tongues. I could not be reconciled to limit myself in these investigations, to a few hours, after the arduous labors of the day.

"I therefore laid down my hammer, and went to New Haven, where I recited to native teachers, in French, Spanish, German, and Italian. I returned, at the expiration of two years, to the forge, bringing with me such books in those languages as I could procure. When I had read these books through, I commenced the Hebrew, with an awakened desire of examining another field; and, by assiduous application, I was enabled in a few weeks to read this language with such facility, that I allotted it to ............