We will quote a passage from one of these childish sermons, written when he was eight years old. The text selected is, ‘Behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years’ (Isaiah xiii. 6); and, after some commonplaces on the condition of Hezekiah, the author takes occasion from the day, January 1, 1806, to make the following reflections: ‘I shall now consider what resolutions we ought to form at the beginning of a new year. The intention of God in giving us life was that we might live a life of righteousness. The same ever is His intention in preserving it. We ought, then, to live in righteousness, and obey the commandments of God. Do we not perceive that another year is come, that time is passing away quickly, and eternity is approaching? and shall we be all this while in a state of sin, without any recollection that the kingdom of heaven is nearer at hand? But we ought, in the beginning of a new year, to form a resolution to be more mindful of the great account we must give at the last day, and live accordingly: we ought to form a resolution to reform our lives, and walk in the ways of God’s righteousness; to abhor all the lusts of the flesh, and to live in temperance; and resolve no more to offend and provoke God with our sins, but repent of them. In the beginning of a new year we should reflect a little: although we are kept alive, yet many died in the course of last year; and this ought to make us watchful[21].’ There is not much originality of thought in this; indeed, it is impossible to avoid the suspicion that the paternal sermons, to which the author doubtless listened every Sunday, suggested the form, and possibly the matter, of these essays. What meaning could a child of eight attach to such expressions as ‘the lusts of the flesh,’ or ‘repentance,’ or ‘eternity’? Still, notwithstanding this evident imitation of others in the matter, the style has a remarkable individuality. Indeed, just as the portrait of the child which is prefixed to the volume recalls forcibly the features of the veteran Bishop at seventy years of age, we fancy that we can detect in the style a foreshadowing of some of the qualities which rendered that of the man so remarkable. There is the same orderly arrangement of what he has to say, the same absence of rhetoric, the same logical deduction of the conclusion from the premisses. As we turn over the pages of the volume we are struck by the extent of reading which the allusions suggest. The best English authors, the most famous men of antiquity, are quoted as if the writer were familiar with them. The themes, too, are singularly varied. We find ‘An Eastern Tale,’ which, though redolent of _Rasselas_, is not devoid of originality, and has considerable power of description; an ‘Address’ delivered to the Worshipful Company of Drapers at their annual visit to Bancroft’s School, which is not more fulsome than such compositions usually are; and, lastly, half a dozen poems, which are by far the best things in the book.