XXIX 



and Mr. Roget a warm friendship had arisen, together with sentiments of 

 the highest mutual esteem. The subject of the present memoir was the 

 only son of this marriage. 



He had the misfortune to lose his excellent father very early in life. 

 Not five months after his birth his parents were compelled to leave him in 

 England and hasten to Geneva, on account of Mr. Roget' a declining health. 

 Two years afterwards the child was brought to them by his uncle, Mr. 

 Romilly, who was then studying the law ; and in two years more, under 

 the same escort, the widowed mother returned to England with her son, 

 and a daughter that had been born a few weeks only before the father's 

 death, which event happened in May 1783. 



In the following year the Rogets resided in Kensington Square, in the 

 family of Mr. Chauvet, of Geneva, who kept a private school, where much 

 of the character of parental intimacy was infused into the ordinary relations 

 of teacher and pupil. Here the boy received the rudiments of education ; 

 but he was no doubt mainly indebted for his early training to the devoted 

 care of his mother, who was admirably qualified for the task, not only by 

 her mental acquirements, but by a systematic habit of mind, which was in- 

 herited by her son in a marked degree. At a very early age, moreover, he 

 began the practice of self-instruction ; and having conceived a strong taste 

 for mathematical studies, which he pursued without aid or even encourage- 

 ment from others, he soon made considerable progress in the elements of 

 science. 



Although from time to time returning to Kensington, Mrs. Roget and 

 her two children spent the greater part of the ten years next after her 

 husband's death in short sojourns in the provinces. This was an eventful 

 period of history; and, late in life, Dr. Roget remembered how, during a 

 summer spent at Malvern, the news arrived of the taking of the Bastille, 

 and how while at Dover they used to see the emigrants landing from 

 France and thanking God for their deliverance. In the year 1/93, the 

 mother with her tw T o children took up their residence in Edinburgh, where 

 Roget, then 14 years old, was entered at the University, which was then 

 at the height of its fame. During the first two years of his residence there 

 he attended the classes of Humanity (Dr. Hill), Greek (Mr. Dalzell), 

 Chemistry (Dr. Black), Natural Philosophy (Greenfield), and Botany (Dr. 

 Rutherford). 



In the summer of 1795 his studies were agreeably varied by a tour in 

 the Highlands, in company with his uncle Romilly and their attached 

 friend Mr. Dumont, well known in connexion with the writings of Bentham, 

 and as author of the ' Souvenirs sur Mirabeau.' To the early guidance of 

 the last-mentioned companion, who took a warm interest in his welfare, 

 and was at especial pains to aid the cultivation of his intellect, Dr. Roget 

 was wont to attribute the enlightened principles which governed his con- 

 duct throughout life. He entered the medical school in the ensuing win- 

 ter, and attended during that and the two following years, the lectures 



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