friendship with one of its members, to a remarkable and accomplished family. He had become acquainted with John Gurney, son of John Gurney, Esq., of Earlham Hall, near Norwich. He was invited thither, on a visit, and went. He found himself in a new world. The mental exercises and intellectual pursuits of this family, their intelligence and taste, their aspirations and aims after self-improvement, were the sources of the influence they exercised over him, and of the manly character of the sympathy they excited. He became a new man. Intellectual tastes and energies were awakened. Studious habits were instantly formed. A course of classical reading commenced. A laudable ambition was enkindled and sustained, which superseded his fondness for the field and the gun. It was, intellectually, ‘a renewing of the mind,’—‘a being born again,’—‘a conversion,'—a sudden transition 'from death to life, and from darkness to light'—'old things passed away, all things became new.'-From the moment that he was subjected to a highly gifted intellectual influence, his whole mental being underwent a change. He proceeded to Earlham a great, idle lad, of sporting propensities and desultory habits; he left it in purpose and pursuits A MAN. He lived longer in that month than he had seemed to do in previous years, or than he could ever do again in the same period, except, indeed, in experiencing another and a higher birth. I know no blessings,' he says, ' of a temporal nature, for which I ought to render so many thanks, as my connexion with the Earlham family. It has given a colour to my life. Its influence was most positive and pregnant with good, at that critical period between school and manhood. They were eager for improvement-I caught the infection. I was resolved to please them, and in the college at Dublin, at a distance from all my friends, and all control, their influence kept me hard at my books and sweetened the toil they gave. The distinctions I gained, (little valuable as distinctions, but valuable, because habits of industry, perseverance, and reflection, were necessary to obtain them,) were exclusively the result of the animating passion in my mind, to carry back to them the prizes which they prompted and enabled me to win.' "The consequence of this infusion of a new and higher life into Buxton's mind was, that he soon and willingly prepared to

go to college. He entered Dublin University. When he first began study with a private tutor, preparatory to this, he found himself behind most of his associates; but by resolute applica tion and determined perseverance he soon overcame that disadvantage. At college his course was a perpetual triumph. He triumphed over difficulties, he triumphed over others, he triumphed over himself. He took everything every year that it was possible for him to take. There was not a prize, a medal, a certificate, an honour, that he did not obtain. It was the same in a voluntary institution to which he belonged. He received, as a member of the Historical Society, an award of ' remarkable thanks,' which, though provided for by law, there had never been an opportunity of presenting till he won and had them!

"At the termination of his college course, Sir Fowell Buxton received the highest possible compliment to his character and ability, by being solicited to stand for the university, and with the assurance of support and the certainty of being returned to represent it in parliament. He took time to consider, which surprised some; and, after considering, declined,-which surprised more. He never, however, regretted his determination; and there can be no question that it was wise and right. He had lost his expected Irish estates, and his mother, by some unsuccessful speculations, had materially diminished the family property. His worldly losses, while they enhanced the value of a request to represent the university, rendered public life less attractive, and private devotedness to a profession or to business more necessary. He returned to England. He received the hand of Hannah Gurney,—and looked round for something to which to put forth his own, that he might labour like a man for himself and her.

"You are next to see in the course and progress of Sir Fowell Buxton, how his general power was not only subjected to a discipline that increased it, but how he himself voluntarily took it, when thus increased, and sedulously bent in to a specific preparation for a specific course, and that course lofty and laudable.

Though he once had thoughts of going to the bar, he became a man of business. Having passed the Rubicon and

taken his course, he was out and out, fully and thoroughly, what he professed to be. He entered with all his characteristic energy into his station and its duties.' Whatever he did, he did at the time with all his might.' When in business. business, very properly, was in him. For the hour or the day that it required his attention he 'gave himself wholly to it.' Every bit of him, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot-brain and hands-skill and strength,-when he had to work, did work and sometimes he was at it from early morning till late at night. But this was not frequent, or the necessity became less and less. At the same time, then, that he was thus often occupied during the day, he was finding opportunity, morning or evening, for devotion to books. It was not possible that one who had actually been asked to represent a learned university in parliament,―asked, as no empty compliment but in serious earnestness,-by men, as he acknowledged to himself, 'of thought and education, honor and principle-his companions and competitors,-who had known him and observed him for years,'-it was not possible but that he should be alive to the thought of the possibility, at least, of the House of Commons being his destination. He was willing

therefore to avail himself of all the advantages he had previously enjoyed, and to put himself through a designed and elaborate preparation for public life. Without neglecting any duties at Spitalfields, he studied hard to fit himself for St. Stephen's. He read extensively in English literature; he digested Blackstone, and got some considerable inkling of law; he went through Montesquieu, and meditated on its general principles as a science; he studied political economy and kindred subjects; and thus, by the diligent improvement of 'the intervals of business,' he labored to acquire so much, and such varied though related, knowledge, that if ever called to go into parliament, he might not have to refuse from conscious unfitness,-have his qualifications to seek at the moment,- -or all his life have to cram and read for subjects as they rose.

"Think of Buxton, brewing away there, like a man who felt that he had his family to keep, and yet reading and thinking like one who would 'intermeddle with all knowledge.' There he is, doing this at two-and-twenty-three-and-twenty-four

and-twenty-and so on, up to thirty and two-and-thirty, when he entered parliament.

"As, in the youth Buxton, rude force was transformed and elevated into disciplined capacity; so in the man, that capacity was further fitted for ultimate action, by being furnished with the materials of a useful and patriotic public career.

"The whole course of his preparation for parliamentary life illustrated his vigor and perseverance. In the progress of his public measures he was sometimes put to severe trials, in having to follow his personal judgment and to adhere to his own purposes, in spite of the opposition, or, what was far worse, the earnest entreaty of his colleagues and friends. One of the finest moral picture-the resistance ot the individual against united numbers, the victory of personal conviction, self-trust adherence, to the sense of obligation and right, over every sort of influence that could be brought to bear on inferior affectionsmay be seen in Sir Fowell Buxton's behaviour in the House of Commons on a night when, in spite of all his friends could urge, he was determined to push his point to a division. His unalterable purpose looked like dead, downright obstinacy;as the most rational firmness always does, when it seems a reproach or is an invonvenience to others. Some of Buxton's friends blamed the 'obstinacy;' but the Minister said, 'It had settled the question.' It is a happy thing when events justify what is adhered to under a painful sense of personal responsibility: though even disappointment would not destroy the complacency of a rationally decided man.

"Two circumstances, most forcibly show the deep feeling which was united with strength in Sir Fowell Buxton. He found exquisite enjoyment in the quiet of the country; it was delicious to him after the agitations of a session. With his well-used pocket Bible in his hand, he used to walk out, like Isaac meditating in the fields at eventide; and he did this, that he might enjoy, as he said, quietly and alone, what he called the 'Divine silence' of the scene! Carlyle says that the Germans have a proverb to this effect-'Speech is silvern— silence is golden.' Buxton was capable of understanding this. That 'Divine silence' descended softly on his soul, like the dew on the flowers; and I believe, for my part, that dew, falling

upon flowers, never fell on anything more soft than what that silence fell upon in him.

"The other incident was, that when a number of letters were brought into him one morning in the month of September, 1834 which he knew by the colonial post-marks would contain tidings respecting the events of the first of August, he took them up, sealed as they were, and walked out into the woods alone,— his large heart beating with mingled apprehension and hope. There, with no eye to witness his emotion, he opened his letters with silent awe, and his lips to God in vocal praise. His feelings were far too intense and sacred, to be permitted in their expressions to have auditors or observers.

"In looking at Sir Fowell Buxton's religious history, I think you should by no means leave out of view the possibility of very early impressions and impulses that may not have been without their secret effect.

"In 1806, when Buxton was twenty years of age, Providence began more conspicuously to quicken and develop his spiritual nature. He was travelling in Scotland with his Earlham friends; and, in the course of the journey, he purchased a Bible with the express determination to read a portion of it every day. He commenced and continued the exercise. It became one of the fixed habits of his life. Its immediate effect upon him is thus stated:-'Formerly I read generally rather as a duty than a pleasure, but now I read the Scriptures with great interest, and, I must say, happiness.' Again, 'I am sure that some of the happiest hours that I spend are while I am reading our Bible, which is as great a favorite as a book can be. I never before felt so assured that the only means of being happy is from seeking the assistance of a superior Being, or so inclined to endeavor to submit myself to the direction of principle.'

"The next event in the order of means, and of gracious providential arrangement, was in 1811, when he was recommended by two clerical friends to attend the ministry of the Rev. Josiah Pratt. Mr. Pratt was a pious evangelical clergyman of the school of the Newtons, Simeons, and Cecils of former days. Under his teaching, Sir Fowell Buxton's mind speedily opened to the intelligent reception of the truth. He obtained far more clear, deep, and enlarged conceptions of it than he had previ