mother’s side who had such a violent temper, that in a fit of passion one of his eyes actually started out of its socket.  “You,” said my mother to me, “have naturally a violent temper; if you grow up to be a man without learning to govern it, it will be impossible for you then to command yourself; and there is no knowing what crime you may in a fit of passion commit, and how miserable you may, in consequence of it, become.  You are but a very young child, yet I think you can understand me.  Instead of speaking to you as I do at this moment, I might punish you severely; but I think it better to treat you like a reasonable creature.  My wish is to teach you to command your temper—­nobody can do that for you so well as you can do it for yourself.”

’As nearly as I can recollect, these were my mother’s words; I am certain this was the sense of what she then said to me.  The impression made by the earnest solemnity with which she spoke never, during the whole course of my life, was effaced from my mind.  From that moment I determined to govern my temper.’

Acting upon the old adage that example is better than precept, his mother taught him at an early age to observe the good and bad qualities of the persons he met.  The study of character she justly felt to be most important, and yet it is not one of the subjects taught in schools except by personal collision with other boys, and incidentally in reading history.  When sent to school at Warwick, he learned not only the first rudiments of grammar, but ’also the rudiments of that knowledge which leads us to observe the difference of tempers and characters in our fellow-creatures.  The marking how widely they differ, and by what minute varieties they are distinguished, continues, to the end of life, an inexhaustible subject of discrimination.’

May not Maria have gained much valuable training in the art of novel-writing from a father who was so impressed with the value of the study of character?

The Gospel precept which we read as ‘Judge not,’ should surely be translated ‘Condemn not,’ and does not forbid a mental exercise which is necessary in our intercourse with others.

Among the circumstances which had considerable influence on his character, he mentions:  ’My mother was reading to me some passages from Shakespeare’s plays, marking the characters of Coriolanus and of Julius Caesar, which she admired.  The contempt which Coriolanus expresses for the opinion and applause of the vulgar, for “the voices of the greasyheaded multitude,” suited well with that disdain for low company with which I had been first inspired by the fable of the Lion and the Cub.* It is probable that I understood the speeches of Coriolanus but imperfectly; yet I know that I sympathised with my mother’s admiration, my young spirit was touched by his noble character, by his generosity, and, above all, by his filial piety and his gratitude to his mother.’  He mentions also that ’some traits in the history