MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM HACKER,
BY JOHN BRITTON, F.S.A., &c.
This is an unpretending little work, and is written in that style of elegant simplicity which has gained for the writer deserved popularity. This work, too, has claims upon our readers other than its own general merits. It is the life of Mr. Henry Hatcher, who must have been personally known to many in the neighbourhood.
...
"Henry Hatcher was born on the 14th of May, 1777. In his edition of Richard of Cirencester he mentions that historian as his "townsman;" but, strictly speaking, he was a native of the village of Kemble, in the vicinity of Cirencester; his father being a small farmer and landholder in that parish.
He received his earliest tuition at a school in Cirencester, and on the removal of his parents to Salisbury, about 1790, he was placed under the care of Mr. West of that city, with whom he made considerable progress in the classics, mathematics, and other branches of education. When he was only fourteen years old, he was engaged as a junior assistant in the same school, and within the next 3 years he filled the like situation successively in the schools of the Rev. Dr. Evans in the Close, Salisbury; Mr. Ward, Southampton; and the Reverend Dusatoy, of Petersfield; and thus acquired that experience in tuition which proved most valuable to him in after years.
...