left alone in a world, of which the business and pleasures were to
him irksome or insipid. After some unsuccessful trials he renounced
the tumult of London and the hospitality of Putney, and buried
himself in the rural or rather rustic solitude of Beriton; from
which, during several years, he seldom emerged.

As far back as I can remember, the house, near Putney-bridge and
churchyard, of my maternal grandfather appears in the light of my
proper and native home. It was there that I was allowed to spend
the greatest part of my time, in sickness or in health, during my
school vacations and my parents' residence in London, and finally
after my mother's death. Three months after that event, in the
spring of 1748, the commercial ruin of her father, Mr. James Porten,
was accomplished and declared. He suddenly absconded: but as his
effects were not sold, nor the house evacuated, till the Christmas
following, I enjoyed during the whole year the society of my aunt,
without much consciousness of her impending fate. I feel a
melancholy pleasure in repeating my obligations to that excellent
woman, Mrs. Catherine Porten, the true mother of my mind as well as
of my health. Her natural good sense was improved by the perusal of
the best books in the English language; and if her reason was
sometimes clouded by prejudice, her sentiments were never disguised
by hypocrisy or affectation. Her indulgent tenderness, the
frankness of her temper, and my innate rising curiosity, soon
removed all distance between us: like friends of an equal age, we
freely conversed on every topic, familiar or abstruse; and it was
her delight and reward to observe the first shoots of my young
ideas. Pain and languor were often soothed by the voice of
instruction and amusement; and to her kind lessons I ascribe my
early and invincible love of reading, which I would not exchange for