ened, that the fight of it ever remained imperfect.

His propenfity to reading, which had begun to display itself, was for a time checked by these accidents; but the habit was acquired, and after his recovery he indulged it without restraint, by perufing eagerly any books that came in his way, and with an attention proportioned to his ability to comprehend them. In his fifth In his fifth year, as he was one morning turning over the leaves of a Bible in his mother's closet, his attention was forcibly arrested by the sublime description of the angel in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypfe, and the impreffion which his imagination received from it was never effaced. At a period of mature judgment, he confidered the paffage as equal in fublimity to any in the inspired writers, and far fuperior to any that could be produced from mere human compofitions; and he was fond of retracing and mentioning the rapture which he felt, when he firft read it. In his

fixth year, by the affiftance of a friend, he was initiated in the rudiments of the Latin grammar, and he committed some paffages of it to memory; but the dull elements of a new language having nothing to captivate his childish attention, he made little progress in it; nor was he encouraged to perseverance by his mother, who, intending him for a public education, was unwilling to perplex his mind with the study of a dead language, before he had acquired a competent knowledge of his native tongue,

feventh

At Michaelmas 1753, in the clofe of his year, he was placed at Harrow School, of which the worthy and amiable Dr. Thackeray was then head master. The amusements and occupations of a school-boy are of little importance to the public; yet it cannot be uninterefting, or uninftructive, to trace the progress of a youth of genius and abilities, from his earliest efforts to that proficiency in univerfal literature which he afterwards attained. During the two first years of his refidence at Harrow, he was rather remarked

for diligence and application, than for the fuperiority of his talents, or the extent of his acquifitions; and his attention was almost equally divided between his books and a little garden, the cultivation and embellishment of which occupied all his leisure hours. His faculties however neceffarily gained strength by exercife; and during his school vacations, the fedulity of a fond parent was without intermiffion exerted to improve his knowledge of his own language. She also taught him the rudiments of drawing, in which the excelled.

In his ninth year, he had the misfortune to break his thigh-bone in a scramble with his fchool-fellows, and this accident detained him from school twelve months. After his relief from pain, however, the period of his confinement was not fuffered to pass in indolence; his mother was his conftant companion, and amused him daily with the perufal of fuch English books, as the deemed adapted to his tafte and capacity. The juvenile poems of Pope, and Dryden's Tranf

lation of the Eneid, afforded him inceffant delight, and excited his poetical talents, which displayed themselves in the composition of verfes in imitation of his favourite authors. But his progrefs in claffical learning, during this interval, was altogether suspended; for although he might have availed himself of the proffered inftruction of a friend, in whose house he refided, to acquire the rudiments of Latin, he was then fo unable to comprehend its utility, and had fo little relish for it, that he was left unreftrained to pursue his juvenile occupations and amusements, and the little which he had gained in his two first years, was nearly loft in the third.

On his return to school, he was however placed in the fame class which he would have attained, if the progrefs of his ftudies had not been interrupted. He was of course far behind his fellow-labourers of the same standing, who erroneoufly afcribed his infufficiency to laziness or dulnefs, while the master who had raised him to a fituation above his powers, required exertions of which he was

incapable, and corporal punishment and degradation were applied, for the non-performance of tasks, which he had never been inftructed to furnish. But in truth he far excelled his fchool-fellows in general, both in diligence and quickness of apprehenfion; nor was he of a temper to fubmit to imputations, which he knew to be unmerited. Punishnent failed to produce the intended effect; but his emulation was roufed. He devoted himself inceffantly to the perufal of various elementary treatises, which had never been explained nor even recommended to him; and having thus acquired principles, he applied them with fuch fkill and fuccefs, that in a few months he not only recovered the station from which he had been degraded, but was at the head of his clafs: his compofitions were correct, his analysis accurate, and he uniformly gained every prize offered for the beft exercise. He voluntarily extended his ftudies beyond the prescribed limits, and, by folitary labour, having acquired a competent knowledge of the rules of profody, he com