country-house distant about a mile and a half from that town. My first recollections date from 1782; when we had removed to Hagley Row, The Five Ways, which was then the Clifton of Birmingham. I remember the aged Judge Oliver, Lord Chief Justice of Massachusetts, as then living within two or three doors of us; and the pleasure it was to me to be allowed to hand to his relative, Governor Hutchinson, a rich cup of chocolate in his morning calls, and to be taken on his knee afterwards and hear all about the Falls of Niagara and hunting the bisons; to look through his Claude glass and his telescope; and to see a collection of little curiosities, which he delighted to make, and to show to children.

I then remember, too, learning to put together Dissected Maps; and, my eyes being blindfolded, I was expected to find the different counties by their form and size. I also recollect the pleasure it was to see a camera obscura, and to have it explained by my mother. As a shadowy remembrance, I recall the image of old Lord Monboddo, approaching the house on horseback, with a huge package on his horse behind him; so that I, looking from a window, called out to my mother that the tame dromedary we had seen a few days before was coming back to About the same time I remember seeing Dr. Smeaton, the builder of the Eddystone Lighthouse,

us.

Nor can I forget the delightful holiday it used to be, when my kind grandfather came to visit us, or I went to him, and he gave me a little basket of his beautiful fruit, particularly grapes and pine-apples, and taught me how to skip the rope or to sow seeds in my little garden. I also recollect the pleasure it sometimes used to be on a winter evening when my father told me of Menelaus, and Troy, and Ulysses, and the adventures of Æneas; and to go with him and see our horses "Hector " and " Ajax," " Balius ” and "Xanthus."

"

She

Amongst the deepest remembrances of that time, is that of my mother's first telling me of God. was very fond of instructing me, and leading me to inquire into the causes of things; as, for example, of light as coming from the sun, or water from the sea or clouds; so that I was led to inquire of her, “But where did the sun and the sea come from?" She told me to think for a day, and endeavour to find out, but that if I could not, at the end of that time she would tell me. The day seemed interminable; and failing in my endeavour, the next morning I renewed my inquiry. She answered very solemnly that she would take me into a room where we should be alone, and there she would tell me. She took me up-stairs, through her bedroom, into a little dressing-room, into which I was not habitually allowed to enter, but which from that time I as distinctly remember as

though I now saw everything in it. She shut the door, and said she was now going to answer my question; that that answer would be the most important thing I should ever hear in my life, for that it would involve everything I should hereafter feel, or think, or do;-that if I made a good use of it, I should have such happiness, that nothing whatever could make me completely miserable; but if, on the contrary, I made a bad use of this knowledge, nothing could make me happy.

She then spoke to me of God; of His omnipotence; of His omnipresence; of His great wisdom shown in all He had made; of His great love to all His creatures, whether human beings or animals. She told me that God had given to every person a voice in the interior of their hearts, and that this voice was called Conscience; that it had spoken to me the other day, when I had been obstinate in spelling my lesson, and had made me feel that I had done wrong. She then said, that God had invited all His creatures to speak to Him, and to tell Him their wants, and that this was called Prayer; and to thank Him for all His goodness, and that this was called Thanksgiving; and that we should never begin nor end the day without both the one and the other. She said, also, that when she saw I was going to be naughty, she should give me five minutes to sit still and recollect myself, before she proceeded to punish my disobedience.

From that time, on Sundays she always taught me one of the Commandments, a clause of the Lord's Prayer, or one of the texts from the Sermon on the Mount, and explained it to me; as also a question or two in Dr. Priestley's Scripture Catechism. She made me read to her one of Mrs. Barbauld's Prose Hymns for Children; and sometimes she would make me sit still with her, after the manner of Friends. I was going to say this instruction struck deeply into my heart; but it would be more correct were I to say, that though at times it returned with power, there were long seasons when it was not the least influential.

Meanwhile these impressions were crossed by many very opposite ones. My father and mother constantly desired me to bear pain like a Philosopher or a Stoic. I remember my mother telling me of the little Spartan boy, who, having stolen a fox, let it gnaw him to the heart without his betraying pain; and she asked me when I should be able to do the same. One day some cotton which was on my hand having caught fire, my mother bade me bring it slowly to her. She was at the opposite end of a long room; and I was told to walk slowly, lest the flame should catch my dress; and not to mind the pain, but to be like the boys of Sparta. I did so; but the scar remained on my hand many, many years. I also

recollect with shame, that my endeavours to be a philosopher were not grounded on any love of philosophy; but partly on an inordinate tendency to self-esteem, which made me like to see my own doings in a grandiose point of view; and partly from the feeling of humiliation in seeing my own character as poor and commonplace and conquered by circumstances. They were also founded on my tender love to my dear and honoured mother; whose noble character had in reality that magnanimity which I thus attempted to copy. My father, too, equally wished me to be a philosopher; and liked to instruct me in the rudiments of science. I had a pretty little monkey named Jack, a dog, a cat, a rabbit, and other animals. It was my delight to hear my father explain the Linnæan Orders; and to have him show me the teeth and claws of my various pets, classifying them, from the Primates Jack to the Brutum Sus.

I well remember one day when George Bolt, the Friends' Dentist, came to examine my teeth. I agreed to have my front teeth drawn before my mother came in from her walk, that I might puzzle her as to my classification, as I should want the four teeth in the upper jaw, the distinctive mark of the Primates. I sat still and had them all out, that it might be over when she arrived. George Bolt said I was "the best "ittle girl he had ever