who, the summer before his death, undertook a journey to Winchester College, at which school he had been educated, and afterwards said to a friend, his companion in that journey, "How useful was that advice of a holy monk, who persuaded his friend to perform his customary devotions in a constant place, because, in that place, we usually meet with those very thoughts which possessed us at our last being there; and I find it thus far experimentally true, that my now being in that school, and seeing that very place where I sate when I was a boy, occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth which then possessed me; sweet thoughts, indeed, that promised my growing years numerous pleasures, without mixtures of cares; and those to be enjoyed, when time (which I therefore thought slow paced) had changed my youth into manhood. But age and experience have taught me, that those were but empty hopes: for I have always found it true, as my Saviour did foretell, Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Nevertheless, I saw there a succession of boys using the same recreations, and questionless possessed with the same thoughts that then possessed me. Thus one generation succeeds another, both in their lives, recreations, hopes, fears, and deaths."

If ever there was an instance of a love of literature that displayed itself almost from the very birth,

it

may be found in the subject of this memoir. In his family there was no one to awaken it in him. His father and mother were persons engaged in the pleasures of the world, whose pursuits were totally unconnected with literary subjects; and his brother, who was three years older than himself, and, as the eldest, was rather the favourite while they were children, had not the slightest taste for learning. It was not till his repute at Harrow became known to his father, that his talents began to be appreciated at home, where he had gone on following his own tastes without exciting attention, and pursuing his little readings without the stimulus of praise. Yet so decided was his natural predisposition to learning, that he remembered, when only a child of six or seven years old, feeling a sort of agitation excited in him at the sight of a gentleman, whom his father pointed out to him as a clever man who had written a book ;" and following him with admiring eyes wherever he moved, as if even then he was conscious that there is something in knowledge "better than house and lands." That encouragement, which was wanting at home, he found at Harrow. There was first developed that fine clas

sical taste, for which he was afterwards so remarkable. There, with companions engaged in the same pursuits, and endowed with talents calculated to excite in him that spirit of emulation so favourable to exertion, his mind became imbued with a love of the beautiful from the purest sources, and first learned to admire all most worthy of admiration. The dry technicalities of learning were soon conquered; and he began to think and feel with the heroes of ancient times, as they pursued that track of glory on earth, which was to render them worthy after death of sharing eternal youth with the immortal gods," to whom alone it is given to feel no old age, and never to die." No one, I think, can read his Chorus from the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides, written at Harrow when he was only fourteen, without admitting that it is an extracrdinary production for a boy. Not only has it the spirit of an original composition, but it has none of the bombast and false taste which almost invariably disfigure the best efforts of that age. He seems, rich with his classic lore, to feel all that the poet expresses, to see the Naiad nymphs waving high their beechen garlands, and to hear the sweet Dryad sorg:

"Still memory paints th' immortal minstrels near, Still notes of other worlds entrance my ear!"

But the time now approached which was to terminate his happy schoolboy days-" days that will ne'er return again," and on which, I have heard him say he would fix, were he compelled to name the happiest period of his life. Alas! this fond remembrance of Harrow determined those who loved him in the choice of his last resting-place. But I will not anticipate. Let me think of him still as glowing with youth, hope, and joy!

In the course of his education-I think between his school and university life-he resided for six months with Dr. Parr as a pupil. Though occasionally reproved for various youthful pranks, his fine qualities of mind and heart were quickly discerned by his learned tutor, who soon became attached to him. They used to sit up together, night after night, conversing with equal freedom on all kinds of subjects, while Dr. Parr laid aside the tutor, and found in his young pupil a highly-gifted and most agreeable companion; who, on his part, communicated all his ideas to him without constraint, and conversed with him on a footing of perfect equality. Sometimes, the next morning, when he resumed the character of tutor, he would say, "Billy, there is no occasion for you to trouble

your head with all we talked of last night. Indeed, I do not remember what I said." But, as the evening returned, the tutor again disappeared, and the long interesting conversations were resumed between the learned scholar and philosopher, and the young pupil full of youthful knowledge and bright imaginations; whose mind, doubtless, expanded more generously under the influence of this free communication with a man so justly celebrated for talents and learning, than it would have done under a system of mere regular scholastic discipline. To the end of his life Dr. Parr always kept up an affectionate intercourse with his favourite pupil.

Mr. Spencer's removal from Harrow took place before he was sixteen years of age; and though, according to his own account, he felt proud of leaving school, and fancied himself in all respects fit to take his place amongst men, he regretted afterwards that he had not remained another year at Harrow, where he would have been in a much more advantageous situation for the prosecution of his studies than at Oxford. The vicinity of Christchurch to Blenheim, his uncle's residence, and to Wheatfield, his own home, offered too many