y was
scarcely sufficient, and my mother's attention was somewhat diverted
by an exclusive passion for her husband, and by the dissipation of the
world, in which his taste and authority obliged her to mingle. But the
maternal office was supplied by my aunt, Mrs. Catherine Porten; at
whose name I feel a tear of gratitude trickling down my cheek. A life of
celibacy transferred her vacant affection to her sister's first child;
my weakness excited her pity; her attachment was fortified by labour
and success: and if there be any, as I trust there are some, who rejoice
that I live, to that dear and excellent woman they must hold themselves
indebted. Many anxious and solitary days did she consume in the patient
trial of every mode of relief and amusement. Many wakeful nights did she
sit by my bedside in trembling expectation that each hour would be
my last. Of the various and frequent disorders of my childhood my own
recollection is dark. Suffice it to say, that while every practitioner,
from Sloane and Ward to the Chevalier Taylor, was successively summoned
to torture or relieve me, the care of my mind was too frequently
neglected for that of my health: compassion always suggested an excuse
for the indulgence of the master, or the idleness of the pupil; and the
chain of my education was broken, as often as I was recalled from the
school of learning to the bed of sickness.

As soon as the use of speech had prepared my infant reason for the
admission of knowledge, I was taught the arts of reading, writing,
and arithmetic. So remote is the date, so vague is the memory of their
origin in myself, that, were not the error corrected by analogy, I
should be tempted to conceive them as innate. In my childhood I was
praised for the readiness with which I could multiply and divide, by
memory alone, two sums of several figures; such praise encouraged my
growing talent; and had I persevered in this line of application, I
might have acquired some fame in mathematical studies.

After this previous institution at home, or at a day school at Putney, I
was delivered at the age of seven into the hands of Mr. John Kirkby,
who exercised about eighteen months the office of my domestic tutor. His
learning and virtue introduced him to my father; and at Putney he might
have found at least a temporary shelter, had not an act of indiscretion
driven him into the world. One day reading prayers in the parish church,
he most unluckily forgot the name of K