according to the course of nature in society, to be reasonably expected concerning a child of parentage like his, intended to be educated, as he afterwards was, so as to qualify him to fill high stations in the school and the church, and furthermore endowed with gifts, both of Providence and grace, to adorn and dignify the same. This, indeed, could only have been hopefully anticipated on the presumption that, in this enlightened age, learning and talents, virtue and piety must make their way, when they can start from so fair a point, with so clear a course, and in a line so direct as first had been chosen for him, and eventually adopted by himself, when he had understanding to make his election between religion without reference to its secular prospects, and a religious profession to gratify worldly aspirings. In fifty instances the prediction might have failed, considering the numberless contingencies to defeat its accomplishment; in this one, however, it was verified, to the honour of the individual, to the credit of that Church of which he became so illustrious a minister, and to the advantage of the Christian public to which his writings have been made so distinguished a blessing. Yet there was, on the very threshold, an obstacle, which seemed to portend no such advancement without conflict and peril all the way through. George Horne was the son of a clergyman, who had obtained no extraordinary prefer

ment, and who clave to his integrity with such firmness of purpose, that, to use an expression of his own, of which the best commentary upon the words were his deeds, “he would rather be a toadeater to a mountebank than flatter any great man against his conscience." Such a parent was never likely to bring up his son as an ecclesiastical fortune-hunter. The son was worthy of the parent, and each had his reward; the former in faithfully fulfilling his pastoral and family duties throughout his parish and at home; the latter, in passing through one degree of honour to another; from the condition of a humble curate to the highest dignity in the establishment, as quietly as the moon in the firmament waxes

"From the dim streak of western light,

To the full orb that rules the night:"

like her too, reflecting all around him the light which he received from a higher source; not as his own, but causing it so to shine before men, that they, seeing his good deeds, glorified his heavenly Father; he meanwhile ever aiming to attract attention, not to himself but to Him whom in all things he endeavoured to resemble, as the disciple (may be) like his master, and the servant like his lord.'

The father was in many things, as became him, the instructor and exemplar of his son; training him up, not only in the nurture and admonition of

the Lord, and early initiating him in the rudiments of all useful knowledge; but also habituating him to the practice of those courteous and benevolent dispositions and manners towards others, which in himself were remarkably ingratiating. Such was his tenderness to this delicate child, (the second among seven,) that he was wont to awaken him when an infant with the soft notes of the flute, lest he should be startled too suddenly from sleep, in alarm or ill temper. The father of Montaigne, in like manner, because some folks fancied that the understandings of children were impaired by their being rudely roused from their golden slumbers,the fairy phantasies of" that strange thing, an infant's dream," to realities as strange and dreamlike to them, had music every morning introduced into his son's chamber, that he might awake in good humour or gay exhilaration of spirit, as well as with bodily refreshment. Horne was Montaigne in all the lively and amiable accomplishments of that ingenious and fascinating egotist, but without his egotism, and with what Montaigne never knew, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.' At home young Horne was beloved for many endearing qualities, but especially that rare one of being a peace-inaker; and blessed' as such characters are in all situations of life, thrice and four times blessed are they in families, when they study to prevent those petty strifes from which so

many of the miseries of every-day life arise. By a sensibility, "quick as the apple of an eye," he instantly perceived when offence had been hazarded, and before it could be resented, contrived to turn it off with some pleasantry so apt and opportune, that the parties had no choice but to fall back into good humour, instead of falling out with each other. When we consider how long and how bitterly such minute provocations may rankle in the minds and canker the tempers of brothers and sisters, such a pacificator in a household must have been an invaluable inmate,—a guardian angel even in the person of a child.

After due preparation in classical studies, first under his father and afterwards under the Rev. Deodatus Bye, he was so well-grounded, indeed so far advanced in these, that as a youth of extraordinary promise, he obtained a Maidstone scholarship in University College, Oxford, and entered himself there at the age of fifteen years. Here, without ostentation, but not unobserved by those who could appreciate his merits, he devoted himself with such diligence and success to the acquisition of the best knowledge of every kind within his reach, that when he took his degree, and a Kentish fellowship happened to become vacant in another College, (Magdalen,) the senior fellow of his own, (University,) without the privity of Mr. Horne, gave such a recommendation of him to the society

of the former, that, on the day of election, the fellowship was, most honourably to all parties, conferred upon him. The Rev. Mr. Jones, at that time his college companion, through subsequent life his confidential friend, and after death his affectionate biographer,-(whose Memoirs also accompany this edition of his greatest work,)—thus summarily anticipates from this turning-point of his fortune, his onward progress of preferment. The brief extract may be well introduced here, to obviate the necessity of any future particular notice of the circumstances in this limited Essay. "If we look back upon our past lives, it will generally be found, that the leading facts, which gave a direction to all that followed, were not according to our own choice or knowledge, but from the hand of an overruling Providence, which acts without consulting us : * * * * * leading us, as it led the patriarch Abraham-of whom we are told, that he knew not whither he was going. This was plainly the case in Mr. Horne's election to Magdalen College. A person took up the matter unsolicited and in secret: he succeeded. When fellow, his character and conduct gave him favour with the society, and when Dr. Jenner died, they elected him president. The headship of the college introduced him to the office of vice-chancellor, which at length made him as well known to Lord North, as to Lord Hawkesbury (who had been his fellow-student:) this led