ABSTRACT
Fortunately, however, for my uncle, his godfather, Mr Benson Earle, was a sound classical scholar, and had been a ward of the celebrated James Harris, the author of Hermes. This book Mr Earle put into the hands of his godson, then about fourteen years of age, and the young student, on opening it, felt as if his mental eye had been couched, discovering with surprise that the lessons which appeared to him, of all his scholastic tasks, the driest and most unmeaning, involved many profound speculations of intellectual philosophy.
