leet, my memory was complimented by many as being very retentive, and my progress in knowledge was more considerable than that of my school-fellows; a natural curiosity and desire of knowledge, I think I may say, without vanity, distinguished even the period of my infancy. I now remember questions that I asked when about four years old, which were rather singular, and which were confined chiefly to biblical subjects. No child could be more attached to places of worship, or could be more inquisitive about their concerns than myself; and I may add, more given to imitate the actions of the minister and clerk."*

When he had completed his fifth year, he suffered the severest earthly privation a child can know, in the loss of an affectionate mother. Though then too young correctly to appreciate a parent's worth, he deeply felt the stroke; and in the liveliest manner he recalls the impression which at that early period this melancholy circumstance produced upon his tender mind. "When the funeral sermon was preached I could not help noticing the grief which seemed to pervade every person present. Deeply affected myself, I recollect, that after the service, as I was walking about our little garden with my disconsolate father, I said to him, Father, what is the reason that so many people cried at the meeting this afternoon.'-He, adapting his language to my comprehension, said, "They cried to see little children like you without a mother."+ This event, which shed so deep a gloom upon his family, seems

* M. S. Memoirs. † Ibid.

to have excited emotions of a serious nature in his mind never totally effaced.

From this time he applied himself with diligence and delight to the business of his school. There was at this early age something amiable and engaging in his manners; and this combined with his attention to his learning, soon secured the esteem and approbation of his respective teachers, and gained him, together with the first place and highest honours of his school, the character of "a good boy." It is pleasing to mark the early combination of superior talent and sweetness of disposition in this extraordinary young man; and it would be well, did the patrons of early genius more deeply ponder the reflection, that the graces of a meek and quiet spirit are far more estimable than the rare qualities of a prematurely vigorous mind; and that the talents they cultivate with such anxious care, if unassociated with real excellence of soul, may render the idols of their fond adulation sources of anguish to themselves and incalculable mischief to mankind.

Whilst a school boy, he became passionately fond of novels, histories, adventures, &c. which he devoured with the greatest eagerness in numbers truly astonishing. The perusal of these he always preferred to play and other amusements adapted to his years. He delighted much in solitude; nor did he know a happiness superior to that of being alone, with one of his favourite books. He took no delight in the games of his companions, nor did he ever mingle in their little feuds. His natural levity,

however, was excessive; and his wit, fed by the publications he so ardently perused, would often display itself in impurity of language to the laughter and amusement of his fellows. Yet he was not without his moments of serious reflection, and that of a very deep and dreadful kind.-He was often overwhelmed with religious considerations, and the solemn sermons he sometimes heard, filled him with terror and alarm. So intolerable at one period were the horrors of his mind, that in an agony of despair, he was tempted, as many have been before him, to destroy himself. Thus at an early age he became intimately acquainted with the depravity of his nature; and from the deep waters of spiritual distress through which he was called to pass, his soul imbibed an air of humility and a habit of watchfulness, which enabled him to meet with firmness the dangers of popularity, and to maintain a steady course, notwithstanding the press of sail he carried.

To these deep convictions of his early years may perhaps be traced the peculiarly pressing and empassioned manner of his address, when he strove to arouse the slumbering conscience, or direct the weary wanderer to the cross of Christ.- -The sacred poems and the passages of holy writ, which most he loved, were those of a cast similar to that of his own fervent mind; and I have heard many tell, with tears, of the animation and rapture with which he would often repeat from that beautiful hymn of Henry Kirke White, his favourite author, whom in many shades of character he much resembled, and alas! too much in his early and lamented fate

Once on the stormy seas I rode,

The storm was loud, the night was dark;
The ocean yawn'd, and rudely blow'd

The wind that toss'd my found'ring bark.

Deep horror then my vitals froze;

Death struck, I ceas'd the tide to stem,
When suddenly a star arose,

It was the star of Bethlehem.

It was my guide, my light, my all,
It bade my dark forebodings cease;
And thro' the storm of danger's thrall
It led me to the port of peace.

Now safely moor'd-my perils o'er,
I'll sing, first in night's diadem,
For ever and for ever more,

The star!-the star of Bethlehem. ·

The bias and inclination of his mind began at this early period to be disclosed; preachers and preaching seemed to occupy all his thoughts, and often he would exercise himself in addressing such domestic congregations as may be supposed to constitute the usual auditories of an infant. Thus in his earliest childhood he displayed his fond attachment to the Christian Ministry, and the first efforts of his infant mind were directed to that sublime and dignified profession, in which the capacities of his maturer age were so brilliantly displayed. These infantine compositions were not infrequently entirely his own; and when they claimed not the merit of originality, they were derived from hints collected from what he had heard or read. But his preaching exhibitions could not long be confined to the narrow circle and scanty congregation his father's house supplied;

tidings of his early pulpit talents soon circulated through the neighbourhood; many were anxious to listen to the instructions of this extraordinary child; and most regarded him, as he himself expresses it, "a parson in embryo."

He seems how

At this age also he wrote verses. ever to have had but a mean opinion of his talent for poetry. It certainly was not the art in which he most excelled. Though an individual may have a power of rhyming sufficient for throwing his feelings into tolerably easy verse, yet something more than this is required in a production which, under the dignified title of a poem, is to meet the public eye. And while most men of an enlightened mind and cultivated taste, have solicited the muses' aid for purposes of private instruction and amusement, and the domestic and social circle have been privileged to share in both, yet it is not necessary to the perfection of the pulpit orator, that he should be au exquisite poet, nor is it at all a detraction from the greatness of his character, that the world should hesitate to pronounce anqualified praise upon poetical effusions, on which the eye or the ear of friendship might linger with delight.

These observations will serve to account for the circumstance, that none of Mr. Spencer's poetical productions are preserved in these pages. And while some partial friends, who saw with pleasure the pieces which circulated in private, may regret for the moment their entire exclusion here, his biographer hopes, that he shall render a more essential service to the memory of his departed friend, by occupying their place, with extracts from his papers of a more solid and interesting kind.