ving after
this in Saint Paul's, until the service held in that cathedral,
under my advice as the prime minister, after the highly dangerous
illness of the Prince of Wales.

Before quitting the subject of early recollections I must name one
which involves another person of some note. My mother took me in
181--to Barley Wood Cottage, near Bristol. Here lived Miss Hannah
More, with some of her coeval sisters. I am sure they loved my
mother, who was love-worthy indeed. And I cannot help here
deviating for a moment into the later portion of the story to
record that in 1833 I had the honour of breakfasting with Mr.
Wilberforce a few days before his death,[6] and when I entered the
house, immediately after the salutation, he said to me in his
silvery tones, 'How is your sweet mother?' He had been a guest in
my father's house some twelve years before. During the afternoon
visit at Barley Wood, Miss Hannah More took me aside and presented
to me a little book. It was a copy of her _Sacred Dramas_, and it
now remains in my possession, with my name written in it by her.
She very graciously accompanied it with a little speech, of which I
cannot recollect the conclusion (or apodosis), but it began, 'As
you have just come into the world, and I am just going out of it, I
therefore,' etc.

I wish that in reviewing my childhood I could regard it as
presenting those features of innocence and beauty which I have often
seen elsewhere, and indeed, thanks be to God, within the limits of
my own home. The best I can say for it is that I do not think it was
a vicious childhood. I do not think, trying to look at the past
impartially, that I had a strong natural propensity then developed
to what are termed the mortal sins. But truth obliges me to record
this against myself. I have no recollection of being a loving or a
winning child; or an earnest or diligent or knowledge-loving child.
God forgive me. And what pains and shames me most of all is to
remember that at most and at best I was, like the sailor in Juvenal,

digitis a morte remotus,
Quatuor aut septem;[7]

the plank between me and all the sins was so very thin. I do not
indeed intend in these notes to give a history of the inner life,
which I think has been with me extraordinari