Soon after the surrender of Oxford my father returned to his estate
at Crowell, which by that time he might have need enough to look
after, having spent, I suppose, the greatest part of the moneys
which had been left him by his grandfather in maintaining himself
and his family at a high rate in London.
My elder brother (for I had one brother and two sisters, all elder
than myself) was, while we lived in London, boarded at a private
school, in the house of one Francis Atkinson, at a place called
Hadley, near Barnet, in Hertfordshire, where he had made some good
proficiency in the Latin and French tongues. But after we had left
the city, and were re-settled in the country, he was taken from that
private school and sent to the free school at Thame, in Oxfordshire.
Thither also was I sent as soon as my tender age would permit; for I
was indeed but young when I went, and yet seemed younger than I was,
by reason of my low and little stature. For it was held for some
years a doubtful point whether I should not have proved a dwarf.
But after I was arrived at the fifteenth year of my age, or
thereabouts, I began to shoot up, and gave not up growing till I had
attained the middle size and stature of men.
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