"How vividly and how faithfully can I summon to my mind's eye that loved and venerated sage, to whom I owe my first awakening to the value of letters; and consequently, all the happiness and consolation which during life have flowed from their culture!

' ἔχω γαρ ά, χω διὰ σε, κοὐκ ἄλλον βροτῶν.

I see him, even now, gently rebuking a fault, with benevolence, which the assumption of magisterial terrors could not enable him wholly to conceal; or else eagerly catching at an opportunity to enlarge upon some merit, so that his praises might vivify a hitherto torpid emulation, and draw forth qualities which, without their aid, might never have germinated. I see him, as he used to pace to and fro, swinging himself upon the boards which creaked beneath the pressure of his ample-buckled shoes, while he rolled out a full-mouthed volume of Atticism, or transposed into kindred English, by his own copious diction and majesty of enunciation, the seemingly untranslatable magnificence of some ecstatic chorus; or yet, again, when kindling with a deeper and more solemn energy, and in still loftier tone, he brought to our knowledge, and to our affections, the things which pertain unto salvation; threw fresh light even upon the luminous evidences which it was his favourite province to expound; fostered the lambs committed to him, not as a hireling; and dropped within our hearts that good seed which, after many days, has since ripened with numbers into the fulness of harvest. But,

Abiit senex! periit senex amabilis !

These are his own words in tribute to a predecessor. Would that he could once more buckle on his mail, and stand up against the Philistine who assaults our camp."

Mr. Deacon Hume was slow to admit that he had profited much by his studies at school. Possibly, he omitted to take into account that part of the education of a public school which is often overlookednamely, the education which boys, in this country, give themselves; and this, as the late Sir Edward Alderson,* no mean authority either on education or on law, was accustomed, and very justly, to insist, is a very important part of education. It is certain that Mr. Hume was a bold, active, hardy boy, and, as he constantly affirmed, an idle one. Sydney Smith used to relate, with mischievous complacency, a youthful encounter which he himself once had with his " amiable schoolfellow," the late Archbishop of Canterbury,† complaining that the future primate knocked him down with a backgammon-board, for no greater offence than his having beaten him in the game. Mr. Deacon Hume used to tell, in a similar manner, of his having fought and beaten the late Sir Watkins Williams Wynne, who, though the bigger boy of the two, was not so good a gladiator as his antagonist. When he first went to Westminster he was a home-boarder; for the last few years, however, he boarded at the house of one of the dames; and before he left school he was the head boy of the house. In that situation he strongly *Baron of the Exchequer. † Dr. Howley.

displayed one of the leading qualities of his mind, which always induced him to protect the weak against the strong, and to exert himself vigorously to check all sorts of bullying and tyranny.

The present Marquis of Lansdowne, and the late Sir Francis Burdett, of whom he appears to have had nothing remarkable to record, were among his contemporaries at school. Although he did not keep up the connections which he formed at Westminster, it was not from any want of interest in them, but from the pressing nature of his occupations in after life. A short time before his death, he was much gratified by a visit from an old schoolfellow, whom he recognised the moment he entered the room, though they had not met from the time when they parted at Westminster, upwards of forty years before. His pleasantest holidays used to be spent at Bremhill, in Wiltshire, of which place, his uncle, the Rev. Nathaniel Hume, one of the canons of Salisbury, was vicar, and the bishop, his near relative, was patron.

In the year 1791, at the age of sixteen, James Deacon Hume was removed from Westminster to the long room of the Custom House. At that time hard drinking was a prevailing vice; and boys upon leaving school expected to participate in what they looked upon as one of the privileges of manhood. J. D. Hume upon his first entrance into life was no better than his generation. He was, however, speedily disgusted with the practice; and having discovered how' degrading and destructive a habit it was, he made a resolution, and

he kept it throughout the days of his youth, never to touch wine. Those who can remember the usages of that period, will appreciate the firmness and strength of mind which this resolution evinced.

At the time of which we are speaking, he was a young man of great bodily activity, fond of field sports, a bold rider, and of a high spirit. It was only by a violent effort that he withdrew himself from hunting. Energy was his leading characteristic through life, and happily he transferred the quality to those more useful Iduties with which his name became afterwards so honourably associated. Upon one occasion, in the depth of winter, being disappointed of the horse which was to take him to the place where the hounds met, he rose between three and four o'clock in the morning, and walked in his top-boots a distance of twenty-three miles into Hertfordshire; and in the evening, after a day's hunting, he offered for a trifling wager to walk back again to London. As an instance of his personal courage, it may be mentioned that several highway robberies having been committed upon the Croydon Road, he and another young man took a post-chaise, and went in the night to Croydon, merely with the hope of an adventure. But though disappointed of his chance in this instance he met with it in another; a short time after, when he was going to Leatherhead in the night, he was stopped and robbed by three highwaymen. He behaved with the greatest coolness, and only begged them to take care of their pistols, with which he said they were quite as likely to hurt each other, as him.

Seeing that he offered no resistance, they did as he requested, put aside their arms and searched him at leisure. In doing this, however, they tickled him so extremely, that it was with the greatest difficulty he could refrain from striking them. It was well that he forbore: for one of them, on the same night, with the muzzle of his pistol, knocked out the eye of a traveller, who made a show of resistance.

Whether the somewhat daring adventurer discovered in the days of his youth any predilection for political economy, or for matters nearly allied to it, we are not informed. But looking before and after, it is difficult to suppose that in this case, as Wordsworth says, "the boy" was not "father to the man. The fact that his father's talents in the same direction attracted the notice of Mr. Pitt, who knew more of political economy, perhaps, than any statesman of his time,*-who as a financial Minister, was the first to introduce into our commercial system, those principles of freedom which have, of late years, been considerably developed; this fact, together with the future eminence of the subject of these pages, leaves little room for doubt upon the point. At any rate it is certain that he embraced, at a very

* The author of a recent and very spirited "History of England to the Peace of Paris, 1856," Mr. C. D. Young, justly observes, "The extent to which Mr. Pitt was in advance of his age may be further seen, if we recollect that he was the first proposer of the great measures of Parliamentary Reform, and of Roman Catholic Emancipation, which have only been carried within the recollection of the present generation." No man, it has been correctly said, has suffered more from being confounded with those who came after him than this great Minister.