The volume bearing the name of Philip Beauchamp had this for its special object.
Having been shown to my father in manuscript, it was put into my hands by him, and I made a marginal analysis of it as I had done of the _Elements of Political Economy_.

Next to the Traite de Legislation_, it was one of the books which by the searching character of its analysis produced the greatest effect upon me.

On reading it lately after an interval of many years, I find it to have some of the defects as well as the merits of the Benthamic modes of thought, and to contain, as I now think, many weak arguments, but with a great overbalance of sound ones, and much good material for a more completely philosophic and conclusive treatment of the subject.
I have now, I believe, mentioned all the books which had any considerable effect on my early mental development.

From this point I began to carry on my intellectual cultivation by writing still more than by reading.

In the summer of 1822 I wrote my first argumentative essay.