Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/199

 it. Political treaties, the discovery or improvement of arts, maxims of government and rules of life, are all mentioned in appropriate terms, collected from books, and treasured up in a retentive memory. He was continually upon the stretch, to overtake those who had gone before him; and though his powers were unequal to the contest, they were invigorated and kept in breath by the exercise of the chace. On the whole, when I reflect, how serious an attention I have endeavoured to attract, to the character and performances of a child, who never completed his seventh year, I tremble at my own temerity; but when I compare his efforts with those of other children, however promising they may be accounted, so unquestionable a superiority seems to warrant the presumption, and almost to impose the statement of the preceding circumstances, as an act of duty. The taste for personal anecdote, and for the exposure of domestic privacy, has of late years been grossly fed; and even where