He rose about six o’clock and commonly retired to his study, where he continued until eight, when he met his family at breakfast. He breakfasted on tea, and after breakfast again went to his study, accompanied by his amanuensis. He often devoted the whole of his morning to composition, or divided his morning between the study and the laboratory. When engaged in experimental work he commonly wore a white apron and canvas covers drawn over his sleeves. He dined at one o’clock and was very abstemious. He seldom drank wine or beer. In the afternoon he usually took a walk, frequently to Birmingham, and spent some time at the office where his works were being printed. He supped at eight, the meal usually consisting of vegetables, and retired to rest shortly after ten. He was extremely methodical in his habits and a rigid economist of time. At Daventry he began the practice, which he continued up to within three or four days of his death, of keeping, in Peter Annet’s system of shorthand, a diary in which he noted where he had been, the nature of his employment, what he had been reading, and any hints or suggestions of future work which had occurred to him, when he rose and the hour at which he went to bed. He was very methodical in his reading and in the alternation of his studies and relaxation. He never read a book without determining in his own mind when he would finish it. Had he a work to transcribe, he would fix a time for its completion. At the beginning of each year he arranged the plan he intended to pursue, and at the close he reviewed the general situation of his affairs and took stock of the progress he had made, noting whether the execution of his plan exceeded or fell short of his expectations. It was this regular apportionment of his time, and the habits of method and order in the arrangement of his business which he adopted in early life, and from which he never materially deviated, together with his uniformly good health, his industry and aptitude for rapid work, which enabled him to achieve what he did. It was, he says, a great advantage to him that he never was under the necessity of retiring from company in order to compose anything. Being fond of domestic life he got a habit of writing on any subject by the parlour fire with his wife and children about him, and occasionally talking to them without experiencing any inconvenience from such interruptions. When he was a young author (although he did not publish anything until he was about thirty) strictures on his writings gave him some disturbance, though he believed even then less than they do most others; but after some time things of that kind hardly affected him at all, and on this account he thinks he may be said to have been well formed for public controversy. But what always made him easy in any controversy in which he was engaged was his fixed resolution frankly to acknowledge any mistake that he might perceive he had fallen into. “That