An early reader

While my brothers would be amusing themselves with cricket or other open air games, I would often engage in reading and my father had about thirty books which were much more scarce, and valuable, in those days than now. I remember eagerly reading Hewitsons Life of Napoleon in 2 Vols, at that time he was considered such a wonderful man, that a bust of him was to be found in almost every cottage in England - Rollins Ancient history and Mosheim Eccelesiastical History, were books I pored over, while the Pilgrims Progress, Klopstock Messiah and Fox's Book of Martyrs were frequently examined.