XXV 



was Havercamp's Sylloge Scriptorum de Ungues Greece Pronun- 

 UaUone. He generally took up first in the morning some ancient 

 author, most frequently Cieero, delighting at such moments to read 

 a portion of his ethical or philosophical writings. His practice 

 now, as m college, was to pursue different studies each day, min- 

 gling with the severer the more lively. Along with Taylor, which 

 he made a severe study, he read through Dryden's prose works, 

 which, with his philological taste and views, were highly enter- 

 taining. With Euclid's Geometry, Locke's Human Understand- 

 ing, and the philological works of Harris and Murray, he read 

 a copious history of the French Revolution, and several works 

 of Edmund Bnrke on the same eventful subject, -an author with 

 whom he was greatly delighted on all subjects, and of whose 

 genius and sagacity he appeared through life to feel an increasing 

 admiration. ° 



As Mr. King passed the summer seasons at Mill-hill, a fine rural 

 situation about five miles from London, Mr. Pickering availed him- 

 self of the opportunity it afforded for the study of botany, and with 

 the aid of Professor Martyn's lectures he acquired a competent 

 knowledge of that beautiful science, which became a source of re- 

 fined gratification to him, and never more so than when he had 

 the pleasure to impart it in his own family. 



But Mr. Pickering was not so devoted to his studies as to over- 

 look any important means of information. He occasionally attend- 

 ed the meetings of Parliament and the courts of law, especially 

 the Admiralty Court, where Sir William Scott was the jud-^e in 

 the proceedings of which he was particularly interested, from' its 

 connection with the law of nations, and from its having before it 

 various American cases. Though the theatre, in its ordinary per- 

 formances, had no attractions for him, yet he went to hear Kemble 

 d 



