was only broken by the short tours in England or on the Continent, in which then, as afterwards, he employed his vacations. Still it is not without interest to dwell on these years, the profound peace of which is contrasted so strongly with the almost incessant agitations of his subsequent life, and "to remain awhile" (thus applying his own words on another subject) "on the high ground where the waters which are hereafter to form the separate streams of his various social and theological views, "lie as yet undistinguished in their common parent lake.” al sperna Whatever may have been the exact notions of his future course which presented themselves to him, it is evident, that he was not insensible to the attraction of visions of extensive influence, and almost to his latest hour he seems to have been conscious of the existence of the temptation within him, and of the necessity of contending against it. "I believe," he said, many years afterwards, in speaking of these early struggles to a Rugby pupil who was consulting him on the choice of a profession,-"I believe that naturally I am one of the most ambitious men alive," and "the three great objects of human ambition," he added, to which alone he could look as deserving the name, were "to be the prime minister of a great kingdom, the governor of a great empire, or the writer of works which should live in every age and in every country." But in some respects the loftiness of his aims made it a matter of less difficulty to confine himself at once to a sphere in which, whilst he felt himself well and usefully employed, he felt also that the practical business of his daily duties acted as a check upon his own inclinations n the oved t to ch is ssant main other aters ims" ie as e." f his it is ction his the the "he hese sult lieve men am kas ister pire, very the liffi ich, yed, aily ons and speculations. Accordingly, when he entered upon his work at Laleham, he seems to have regarded it as his work for life. "I have always thought," he writes in 1823, "with regard to ambition, that I should like to be aut Cæsar aut nullus, and as it is pretty well settled for me that I shall not be Cæsar, I am quite content to live in peace as nullus." It was a period indeed on which he used himself to look back, even from the wider usefulness of his later years, almost with a fond regret, as to the happiest time of his life. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all other things shall be added to you," was a passage to which now more than any other time he was in the habit of recurring, as one of peculiar truth and comfort. His situation supplied him exactly with that union of retirement and work which more than any other condition suited his natural inclinations, and enabled him to keep up more uninterrupted than was ever again in his power the communication which he so much cherished with his friends and relations. Without undertaking any directly parochial charge, he was in the habit of rendering constant assistance to Mr. Hearn, the curate of the place, both in the parish church and workhouse, and in visiting the villagers-thus uniting with his ordinary occupations greater means, than he was afterwards able to command, of familiar intercourse with his poorer neighbours, which he always so highly valued. Bound as he was to Laleham by all these ties, he long loved to look upon it as his final home;-and the first reception of the tidings of his election at Rugby was overclouded with deep sorrow at leaving the scene of so much happiness. Years after he had left it, he still retained his early affection for it, and till he had purchased his house in Westmoreland, he entertained a lingering hope that he might return to it in his old age, when he should have retired from Rugby. Often he would revisit it, and delighted in renewing his acquaintance with all the families of the poor whom he had known during his residence; in showing to his children his former haunts; in looking once again on his favourite views of the great plain of Middlesex-the lonely walks along the quiet banks of the Thames-the retired garden, with its 'Campus Martius," and its "wilderness of trees," which lay behind his house, and which had been the scenes of so many sportive games and serious conversations-the churchyard of Laleham, then doubly dear to him as containing the graves of his infant child whom he buried there in 1832, and of his mother, his aunt, and his sister Susannah, who had long formed almost a part of his own domestic circle, and whom he lost within a few years after his departure to Rugby. His general view of his work as a private tutor is best given in his own words in 1831, to a friend who was about to engage in a similar occupation. "I know it has a bad name, but my wife and I always happened to be fond of it, and if I were to leave Rugby for no demerit of my own, I would take to it again with all the pleasure in life. I enjoyed, and do enjoy, the society of youths of seventeen or eighteen, for they are all alive in limbs and spirits at least, if not in mind, while in older persons the body and spirits often become lazy and languid ving had and , he n to from d in F the -; in king lain quiet hits ees," - the con ubly fant his had rcle, de or is who vays gby 1 all iety live Ider without the mind gaining any vigour to compensate for it. In many respects his method at Laleham resembled the plan which he pursued on a larger scale at Rugby. Then, as afterwards, he had a strong sense of the duty of protecting his charge, at whatever risk to himself, from the presence of companions who were capable only of exercising an evil influence over their associates; and, young as he was, he persisted in carrying out this principle, and in declining to take any additional pupils as long as he had under him any of such a character, whom yet he did not feel himself justified in removing at once. And in answer to the request of his friends that he would "I have no doubt," he answers, that you |