talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give
me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality,
mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him
in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of,
many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me
to read them of myself: among other's Millar's _Historical View of the
English Government_, a book of great merit for its time, and which he
highly valued; Mosheim's _Ecclesiastical History_, McCrie's _Life of
John Knox_, and even Sewell and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was
fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and
resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and
overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's _African Memoranda_,
and Collins's _Account of the First Settlement of New South Wales_.
Two books which I never wearied of reading were Anson's Voyages, so
delightful to most young persons, and a collection (Hawkesworth's, I
believe) of _Voyages round the World_, in four volumes, beginning with
Drake and ending with Cook and Bougainville. Of children's books, any
more than of playthings, I had scarcely any, except an occasional gift
from a relation or acquaintance: among those I had, _Robinson Crusoe_
was pre-eminent, and continued to delight me through all my boyhood.
It was no part, however, of my father's system to exclude books of
amusement, though he allowed them very sparingly. Of such books he
possessed at that time next to none, but he borrowed several for me;
those which I remember are the _Arabian Nights_, Cazotte's _Arabian
Tales_, _Don Quixote_, Miss Edgeworth's _Popular Tales_, and a book
of some reputation in its day, Brooke's _Fool of Quality_.

In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in conjunction with a
younger sister, to whom I taught it as I went on, and who afterwards
repeated the lessons to my father; from this time, other sisters and