care that we should be well instructed in religion, and devoted much time to making us thoroughly acquainted with the social state and political constitution of our country.
Under his tuition I acquired a great respect for all the existing institutions of Britain, and I gained a profound conviction that this country was much superior to any country of ancient or modern times in both its political and social aspects. I was thoroughly persuaded that a limited Monarchy, supported by a hereditary House of Peers, and a House of Commons elected by the free and independent votes of a virtuous people, was the perfection of forms of government. I admired the glorious union of Church and State, fraught with so much benefit to both parties, and I was fervently thankful that I had been born an Englishman.
My father's means did not allow him to send both of us to Oxford; and as my brother's superior aptitude for study plainly indicated that a university education would be more profitably bestowed on him than on me, I not unwillingly consented that he should be brought up for the Church, while I looked about for some mode of life more adapted to my capacity.
Though I cordially ceded to my brother any claim I might be thought to possess, as the elder of the two, to a university education, I envied him the possession of those natural abilities which enabled him to study for the Church, than which I could not conceive a more glorious calling. However, as nature had denied me the qualities of mind necessary to the aspirant for a place in the ecclesiastical establishment of my beloved country, it was resolved, after much careful consideration, to send me to push my fortune in one
