Youth
They lived at Exbury near Beaulieu, at the edge of the New Forest. Here, at Exbury House, his father John's property, Mitford was born. He was educated at Cheam School, under the picturesque writer William Gilpin, but at the age of fifteen a severe illness led to his being removed, and after two years of idleness Mitford was sent, in July 1761, as a gentleman commoner to Queen's College, Oxford. In this year his father died, and left him the Exbury property and a considerable fortune. Mitford, therefore, being "very much his own master, was easily led to prefer amusement to study." He left Oxford (where the only sign of assiduity he had shown was to attend the lectures of Blackstone) without a degree, in 1763, and proceeded to the Middle Temple.
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