to give him an education becoming a gentleman and a scholar. The forebodings of Mrs. Hamilton for several years proved unfounded. After William was of sufficient age and strength to allow her absence, she accompanied her husband to the regimental quarters, which, though they frequently shifted, were never farther removed than Liverpool, Chester, Shrewsbury, or some other town within a hundred miles of her father and her son. Before William had reached the second year of his age she had brought him a brother, and soon after he attained his third she produced another boy. Young William by this time was a strong, active, sprightly little fellow, and the chief favourite of his grand-father, who looked on him as a kind of phenomenon, and though only in his fourth year, began to teach him the first rudiments of literature. Having about a year before risen to be lieutenant-colonel of his regiment, Hamilton had so closely attended to the troops that he procured a leave of absence for six months, which he, with his lady, spent with the vicar, and in vigilantly watching the opening understanding and heart of their eldest son; and from the acuteness of his remarks, quickness and retentiveness of his memory, and readiness of his ingenuity, together with the affectionate kindness of his disposition, all seen through the exaggerating medium of parental partiality, regarded him as a surprizing instance of intelligence and goodness. Affection, however, did not so much blind discernment as to prevent them from discovering that his temper was irritable and fiery, that under the impulse of anger he would very readily do mischief, though he soon repented; and they strongly represented to the vicar this defect in the child, and he promised his efforts to its correction. Hamilton now rejoined his regiment, which was ordered to the south of England, and did not for the two following years after find leisure to revisit his son. William, during this interval, made quick proficiency under his grand-father; at six years old began his accidence, and at seven had made no small progress in Corderius. Besides the old vicar he had another preceptor, who as anxiously superintended the efforts of his bodily strength, as his grand-father his mental improvement. This was sergeant Maxwell, who instructed him in boxing and cricket, as he had himself learned them in his youth, from Hampshire and Sussex men, when quartered in the south of England; and also procured him the instructions of young villagers, eminent for the Yorkshire wrestling, and especially for cross buttocks. Under his various tutors William made such advances that he had few matches of his own age, at either grammatical or gymnastical exercises. About this time the vicar’s eldest son, after having held a fellowship at Cambridge for several years, was presented to a living in his native country, near twenty miles from his father’s house. Having, during his