o a
laugh, and exclaimed 'Funny!' a declaration which Wilberforce no doubt
took in good part, though it seems to have been interpreted as a
reflection upon the philanthropist's peculiar figure. My brother himself
gives a detailed description of his grandfather from an interview which
occurred when the old gentleman was seventy-six and the infant very
little more than three years old. He remembers even the room and the
precise position of the persons present. He remembers too (and his
mother's diary confirms the fact) how in the same year he announced that
the Reform Bill had 'passed.' It was 'a very fine thing,' he said, being
in fact a bill stuck upon a newsboy's hat, inscribed, as his nurse
informed him, with the words 'Reform Bill.'

Although his memory implies early powers of observation, he did not show
the precocity of many clever children. He was still learning to read
about his fifth birthday, and making, as his mother complains, rather
slow progress. But if not specially quick at his lessons, he gave very
early and, as it seems to me, very noticeable proofs of thoughtfulness
and independence of character. He was, as he remained through life,
remarkable for that kind of sturdy strength which goes with a certain
awkwardness and even sluggishness. To use a modern phrase, he had a
great store of 'potential energy,' which was not easily convertible to
purposes of immediate application. His mind swarmed with ideas, which
would not run spontaneously into the regulation moulds. His mother's
influence is perceptible in an early taste for poetry. In his third year
he learnt by heart 'Sir John Moore's Burial,' 'Nelson and the North,'
Wordsworth's 'Address to the Winds,' and Lord F. L. Gower's translation
of Schiller ('When Jove had encircled this planet with light') from
hearing his brother's repetition. He especially delighted in this bit of
Schiller and in 'Chevy Chase,' though he resisted Watts' hymns. In the
next two or three years he learns a good deal of poetry, and on
September 5, 1834, repeats fifty lines of Henry the Fifth's speech
before Agincourt without a fault. 'Pilgrim's Progress' and 'Robinson
Crusoe' are read in due course as his reading improves, and he soon
delights in getting into a room by himself and surrounding himself with
books. His religious instruction of course began at the earliest
possible period, and he soon learnt by heart many simple passages of the
Bible. He made his first appearance at fa