yer, Sir John Doddridge, the first of the name
who procured any distinction to his old Devonian family. Persons skilful
in physiognomy have detected a resemblance betwixt King James's
solicitor-general and his only famous namesake. But although it is
difficult to identify the sphery figure of the judge with the slim
consumptive preacher, and still more difficult to light up with pensive
benevolence the convivial countenance in which official gravity and
constitutional gruffiness have only yielded to good cheer; yet, it would
appear, that for some of his mental features the divine was indebted to
his learned ancestor. Sir John was a bookworm and a scholar; and for a
great period of his life a man of mighty industry. His ruling passion
went with him to the grave; for he chose to be buried in Exeter
Cathedral, at the threshold of its library. His nephew was the rector of
Shepperton in Middlesex; but at the Restoration, as he kept a
conscience, he lost his living. In the troubles of the Civil War, the
judge's estate of two thousand a year had also been lost out of the
family, and the ejected minister was glad to rear his son as a London
apprentice, who became, on the twenty-sixth of June, 1702, the father of
Philip Doddridge.

The child's first lessons were out of a pictorial Bible, occasionally
found in the old houses of England and Holland. The chimney of the room
where he and his mother usually sat, was adorned with a series of Dutch
tiles, representing the chief events of scriptural story. In bright
blue, on a ground of glistering white, were represented the serpent in
the tree, Adam delving outside the gate of Paradise, Noah building his
great ship, Elisha'a bears devouring the naughty children, and all the
outstanding incidents of holy writ. And when the frost made the fire
burn clear, and little Philip was snug in the arm-chair beside his
mother, it was endless joy to hear the stories that lurked in the
painted porcelain. That mother could not foresee the outgoings of her
early lesson; but when the tiny boy had become a famous divine, and was
publishing his Family Expositor, he could not forget the nursery Bible
in the chimney tiles. At ten years of age he was sent to the school at
Kingston, which his grandfather Baumann had taught long ago; and here
his sweet disposition, and alacrity for learning drew much love around
him--a love which he soon inspired in the school at St. Albans, whither
his father subsequently re