No sooner had I settled my new religion than I resolved to profess myself a Catholic, and on June 8, 1753, I solemnly abjured the errors of heresy.  An elaborate controversial epistle, addressed to my father, announced and justified the step which I had taken.  My father was neither a bigot nor a philosopher, but his affection deplored the loss of an only son, and his good sense was astonished at my departure from the religion of my country.  In the first sally of passion, he divulged a secret which prudence might have suppressed, and the gates of Magdalen College were for ever shut against my return.

II.—­A Happy Exile

It was necessary for my father to form a new plan of education, and effect the cure of my spiritual malady.  After much debate it was determined to fix me for some years at Lausanne, in Switzerland, under the roof and tuition of M. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister.  Suddenly cast on a foreign land, I found myself deprived of the use of speech and hearing, incapable of asking or answering a question in the common intercourse of life.  Such was my first introduction to Lausanne, a place where I spent nearly five years with pleasure and profit.

This seclusion from English society was attended with the most solid benefits.  Before I was recalled home, French, in which I spontaneously thought, was more familiar than English to my ear, my tongue, and my pen.  My awkward timidity was polished and emboldened; M. Pavilliard gently led me from a blind and undistinguishing love of reading into the path of instruction.  He was not unmindful that his first task was to reclaim me from the errors of popery, and I am willing to allow him a handsome share of the honour of my conversion, though it was principally effected by my private reflections.

It was now that I regretted the early years which had been wasted in sickness or idleness or mere idle reading, and I determined to supply this defect.  My various reading I now digested, according to the precept and model of Mr. Locke, into a large commonplace book—­a practice, however, which I do not strenuously recommend.  I much question whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the waste of time, and I must agree with Dr. Johnson that what is twice read is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.

I hesitate from the apprehension of ridicule when I approach the delicate subject of my early love.  I need not blush at recollecting the object of my choice, and, though my love was disappointed of success, I am rather proud that I was once capable of feeling such a pure and exalted sentiment.  The personal attractions of Mademoiselle Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind.  Her father lived content with a small salary and laborious duty in the obscure lot of minister of Crassy.  In the solitude of a sequestered village he bestowed a liberal, and even learned, education on his only