After that he scraped a living; John Taylor gave him free instruction, and he took lessons from W. Hemingway, a land surveyor.
He made the acquaintance of Joseph Clover, the veterinary surgeon, who employed him to take horses to be shod, and taught him mathematics in return for Fransham's help in classics.
His reputation grew as a successful preliminary tutor for the universities; he took on more pupils, and started to build a library.
In 1767 he spent nine months in London, carrying John Leedes, a former pupil, through his Latin examination at the College of Surgeons.
In London he met Samuel Foote, who in his 'The Devil upon Two Sticks' (1768) caricatured teacher and pupil as Johnny Macpherson and Dr. Emanuel Last.
He taught (around 1772) in the family of Samuel Cooper, D.D., at Brooke Hall, Norfolk, on the terms of board and lodging from Saturday till Monday.
In 1805 he was asked for assistance by a distant relative, Mrs. Smith; he took her as his housekeeper, hiring a room and a garret in St. George's Colegate.
When she left him in 1806 he seems to have resided for about three years with his sister, who had become a widow; leaving her, he made his last move to a garret in Elm Hill.
In his manuscript Metaphysicorum Elementa (begun 1748, and written with Spinoza as his model) he defines God as "ens non-dependens, quod etiam causa est omnium cæterorum existentium."
The second volume, "A Synopsis of Classical Philosophy", embodies his 'Essay on the Fear of Death,’ expressing a hope of a future and more perfect state of being, a topic on which he had written in his nineteenth year.