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Mudie was virtually self educated and one of life’s achievers. Here is an abbreviated extract from the Wikipedia entry :

Robert Mudie (1777–1842) was a newspaper editor and author. From his boyhood he was an avid reader, reared mainly on the Encyclopædia Britannica. He taught himself Latin by beginning in the middle of Virgil, reading to the end, using a dictionary. He became master of a village school in the south of Fife. In 1802 he was appointed teacher of Gaelic and drawing at Inverness Royal Academy, although he knew little Gaelic. About 1808 he became drawing-master to Dundee Academy, but also soon took on the department of arithmetic and English composition. Becoming a member of the Dundee town council, he worked energetically for burgh reform. Mudie's speeches, attacking corruption on the council, led to the loss of his post as teacher of arithmetic (his drawing post was beyond the council's control). He launched two short-lived periodicals, The Independent (April–September 1816) and The Caledonian (June–October 1821). On the failure of these, in the autumn of 1821 he sold his life appointment as teacher in drawing and moved to London, as a reporter and eventually became editor of the Sunday Times and wrote for the periodicals of the day.