to devote a portion of her time to the reading of the Bible; and her comments and exposi tions might have merited the attention of the wise and learned. Though strictly pious, there was no gloom in her religion, but on the contrary such was the happy faculty, which she possessed, of making every doctrine pleasant, every duty sweet, that what some instructors would have represented as a burden and a yoke, she contrived to recommend as a recreation and delight. All that son can owe to parent, or disciple to his teacher, I owe to her.

My paternal grandfather Richard, only son of Bishop Cumberland, was rector of Peakirk in the diocese of Peterborough and Archdeacon of Northampton. He had two sons and one daughter, who was married to Waring Ashby Esquire of Quenby Hall in the county of Leicester, and died in child-birth of her only son George Ashby Esquire, late of Haselbeach in Northamptonshire. Richard, the eldest son of Archdeacon Cumberland, died unmarried at the age of twenty-nine, and the younger, Denison, so named from his mother, was my father. He was educated at Westminster school, and from that admitted fel

low-commoner of Trinity College in Cambridge. He married at the age of twenty-two, and though in possession of an independent fortune was readily prevailed upon by his father-in-law Doctor Bentley to take the rectory of Stanwick in the county of Northampton, given to him by Lord Chancellor King, as soon as he was of age to hold it. From this period he fixed his constant residence in that retired and tranquil spot, and sedulously -devoted himself to the duties of his function. When I contemplate the character of this amiable man, I declare to truth I never yet knew one so happily endowed with those engaging qualities, which are formed to attract and fix the love and esteem of mankind. It seemed as if the whole spirit of his grandfather's benevolence had been transfused into his heart, and that he bore as perfect a resemblance of him in goodness, as he did in person in moral purity he was truly a Christian, in generosity and honour he was perfectly a gentleman.

On the nineteenth day of February 1732 I was born in the Master's Lodge of Trinity College, inter silvas Academi, under the roof of my grand-father Bentley, in what is

called the Judge's Chamber. Having there fore prefaced my history with these few faint sketches of the great and good men, whom I have the honour to number amongst my ancestors, I must solicit the condescension of my -readers to a much humbler topic, and proceed to speak professedly of myself.

Here then for awhile I pause for self-examination, and to weigh the task I am about to undertake. I look into my heart; I search my understanding; I review my life, my labours, the talents I have been endowed with, and the uses I have put them to, and it shall be my serious study not to be found guilty of any partial estimates, any false appretiation of that self, either as author or man, which of necessity must be made to fill so large a portion of the following pages. When from the date, at which my history now pauses, I look forward through a period of more than seventy and two years, I discover nothing within my horizon, of which to be vain-glorious; no sudden heights to turn me giddy, no dazzling gleams of Fortune's sunshine to bewilder me; nothing but one long laborious track, not often strewed with roses, and thorny, cold and

barren towards the conclusion of it, where weariness wants repose, and age has need of comfort. I see myself unfortunately cast upon a lot in life neither congenial with my character, nor friendly to my peace; combating with dependence, disappointment and disgusts of various sorts, transplanted from a college, within whose walls I had devoted myself to studies, which I pursued with ardent passion and a rising reputation, and what to obtain ? What, but the experience of difficulties, and the credit of overcoming them; the useful chastisement, which unkindness has inflicted, and the conscious satisfaction of not having merited, nor in any instance of my life revenged it?

If I do not know myself I am not fit to be my own biographer; and if I do know myself I am sure I never took delight in egotisms, and now behold! I am self-devoted to deal in little else. Be it so! I will abide the consequences; I will not tell untruths to set myself out for better than I have been, but as I have not been overpaid by my contempora ries, I will not scruple to exact what is due

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to me from posterity.-Ipse de me scribam. (Cic.).

I have said that I was born on the 19th of February 1732; I was not the eldest child, though the only son, of my mother; my sister Joanna was more than two years older than me, and more than twice two years before me in apprehension, for whilst she profited very rapidly by her mother's teaching, I by no means trode in her steps, but on the contrary after a few unpromising efforts per remptorily gave up the cause, and persisted in a stubborn repugnance to all instruction. My mother's good sense and my grandfather's good advice concurred in the measures to be taken with me in this state of mutiny against all the powers of the alphabet; my book was put before me, my lesson pointed out, and though I never articulated a single word, I conned it over in silence to myself. I have traces of my sensations at this period still in my mind, and perfectly recollect the revolt I received from reading of the Heathen Idols, described in the 115th psalm as having eyes and not seeing, ears and not hearing, with other contrarieties, which between positive and negative so com◄