Education
When Porson was eleven, the curate of East Ruston took charge of his education. Mr Hewitt taught him with his own boys, taking him through Julius Caesar, Terence, Ovid and Virgil; he had already made great progress in mathematics. In addition, Hewitt brought him to the notice of John Norris of Witton Park, who sent him to Cambridge to be examined by James Lambert, the two tutors of Trinity College, Cambridge (Thomas Postlethwaite and Collier), and the mathematician George Atwood, then assistant tutor; the result was so favourable that Norris decided in 1773 to provide for his education. It was impossible to get him into Charterhouse School and he was entered at Eton College in August 1774.
Porson did not care for Eton, but he was popular there; and two dramas he wrote for performance in Long Chamber (the scholars' dormitory) were remembered. His memory was noticed; but he seems not to have lived up to expectations, as his composition was weak, and he fell behind through gaps in his knowledge. He went to Eton too late to have any chance of a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge. In 1777 his patron John Norris died; but contributions from Etonians helped fund his maintenance at the university, and he found a new patron in Sir George Baker, then president of the College of Physicians. With his help Porson entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner on 28 March 1778, matriculating in April. What first set his mind towards literary criticism was the gift of a copy of Jonathan Toup's Longinus by the headmaster of Eton; but it was Richard Bentley and Richard Dawes to whom he looked as his immediate masters.
He became a scholar of Trinity in 1780, won the Craven university scholarship in 1781, and took his degree of BA in 1782, as third senior prime, obtaining soon afterwards the first Chancellor's Medal for classical studies. The same year he was elected a fellow of Trinity, an unusual appointment for a junior bachelor of arts, under a regulation which lasted until 1818. Porson graduated MA in 1785.
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