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Our employments are extremely different, and so are our talents.'

This had a most wonderful effect; the most stupid began to open their ears; perhaps it would have succeeded, if a grease-pot had not cried out in a decisive tone: 'You reason like an ass-to the devil with you and your silly lessons.' Now the scale was turned again; all the horde of pans and pitchers applauded the superior eloquence and reasoning of the grease-pot. In short, they determined on an enterprise; but a dispute arose—who should be the chief? Every one would command, but no one obey. It was then you might have heard a clatter; all put themselves in motion at once, and so wisely and with so much vigour were their operations conducted, that the whole was soon changed-not into china, but into rubbish.-Priestley's Emigration.

5. Cobbett's Childhood.

Ar eleven years of age my employment was clipping of box-edgings and weeding beds of flowers in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at the castle of Farnham, my native town. I had always been fond of beautiful gardens, and a gardener who had just come from the King's gardens at Kew gave me such a description of them as made me instantly resolve to work in those gardens. The next morning (this is the early adventure I have previously spoken of), without saying a word to any one, off I set, with no clothes except those upon my back, and with thirteen halfpence in my pocket. I found that I must go to Richmond, and I accordingly went on from place to place inquiring my way thither. A long day (it was in June) brought me to Richmond in the afternoon. Two pennyworth of bread and cheese and a pennyworth of small beer which I had on the

road, and one halfpenny that I had lost somehow or other, left three pence in my pocket. With this for my whole fortune, I was trudging through Richmond in my blue smock-frock, and my red garters tied under my knees, when, staring about me, my eye fell upon a little book in a bookseller's window, on the outside of which was written, 'The Tale of a Tub, price 3d.' The title was so odd that my curiosity was excited. I had the threepence; but then I could not have any supper. In I went and got the little book, which I was so impatient to read, that I got over into a field at the upper corner of Kew Gardens, where there stood a haystack. On the shady side of this I sat down to read. The book was so different from anything that I had ever read before, it was something so new to my mind, that, though I could not understand some parts of it, it delighted me beyond description, and produced what I have always considered a sort of birth of intellect.

I read on until it was dark without any thought of supper or bed. When I could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket and tumbled down by the side of the stack, where I slept till the birds in the Kew Gardens awakened me in the morning, when off I started to Kew, reading my little book. The singularity of my dress, the simplicity of my manner, my lively and confident air, and doubtless his own compassion besides, induced the gardener, who was a Scotchman, I remember, to give me victuals, find me lodging, and set me to work; and it was during the period that I was at Kew that George IV. and two of his brothers laughed at the oddness of my dress while I was sweeping the grass-plot round the foot of the Pagoda. The gardener, seeing me fond of books, lent me some gardening books to read; but these I could not relish after my 'Tale of a Tub,' which I carried about with me wherever I went, and when

I—at about twenty years old-lost it in a box that fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy, in North America, the loss gave me greater pain than I have since felt at losing thousands of pounds. Letter to the Evening Post, 1820.

6. In Newgate.

Now, then, the book-learning was forced upon us. I had a farm in hand; it was necessary that I should be constantly informed of what was doing. I gave all the orders, whether as to purchases, sales, ploughing, sowing, breeding—in short, with regard to everything, and the things were in endless number and variety, and always full of interest. My eldest son and daughter could now write well and fast. One or the other of these was always at Botley, and I had with me— having hired the best part of the keeper's house-one or two besides, either their brother or sister. We had a hamper, with a lock and two keys, which came up once a week or oftener, bringing me fruit and all sorts of country fare. This hamper, which was always at both ends of the line looked for with the most lively interest, became our school. It brought me a journal of labours, proceedings, and occurrences, written on paper of shape and size uniform, and so contrived as to margins as to admit of binding. The journal used, when my eldest son was the writer, to be interspersed with drawings of our dogs, colts, or anything that he wanted me to have a correct idea of. The hamper brought me plants, herbs, and the like, that I might see the size of them; and almost every one sent his or her most beautiful flowers, the earliest violets and primroses and cowslips and bluebells, the earliest twigs of trees, and, in short, everything that they thought calculated to delight me. The moment the hamper arrived, I—casting aside everything else-set to

work to answer every question, to give new directions, and to add anything likely to give pleasure at Botley.

Every hamper brought one letter, as they called it, if not more, from every child, and to every letter I wrote an answer, sealed up and sent to the party, being sure that that was the way to produce other and better letters; for though they could not read what I wrote, and though their own consisted at first of mere scratches, and afterwards, for a while, of a few words written down for them to imitate, I always thanked them for their pretty letter, and never expressed any wish to see them write better, but took care to write in a very neat and plain hand myself, and to do up my letter in a very neat manner.

Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought I was doomed to incessant mortification, and to rage that must extinguish my mental powers, I found in my children, and in their spotless and courageous and affectionate mother, delights to which the callous hearts of those tigers were strangers. 'Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid.' How often did this line of Pope occur to me when I opened the little fuddling letters from Botley. This correspondence occupied a good part of my time. I had all the children with me, turn and turn about; and in order to give the boys exercise, and to give the two eldest an opportunity of beginning to learn French, I used for a part of the two years to send them for a few hours a day to an abbé, who lived in Castle Street, Holborn. All this was a great relaxation to my mind; and when I had to return to my literary labours, I returned fresh and cheerful, full of vigour, and full of hope of finally seeing my unjust and merciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without caring a straw on whom their fall might bring calamity, so that my own family were safe, because say what any one might-the community, taken as a whole, had suffered this thing to be done unto us.

The paying of the workpeople, the keeping of the accounts, the referring to books, the writing and reading of letters, this everlasting mixture of amusement with book-learning, made me, almost to my own surprise, find at the end of two years that I had a parcel of scholars growing up about me, and, long before the end of the time, I had dictated my Register to my two eldest children. Then there was copying out of books, which taught spelling correctly. The calculations about the farming affairs forced arithmetic upon us; the use, the necessity of the thing, led to the study.

By and by we had to look into the laws, to know what to do about the highways, about the game, about the poor, and all rural and parochial affairs.

I was, indeed, by the fangs of government defeated in my fondly-cherished project of making my sons farmers on their own land, and keeping them from all temptation to seek vicious and enervating enjoyments; but those fangs-merciless as they had been-had not been able to prevent me from laying in for their lives, a store of useful information, habits of industry, care, and sobriety, and a taste for innocent, healthful, and manly pleasures. The fiends had made me and them penniless, but had not been able to take from us our health, or our mental possessions, and these were ready or application as circumstances might ordain.-Evening Post, 1820.

7. Monastic Institutions.

NOR must we by any means overlook the effects of these institutions on the mere face of the country. That man must be low and mean of soul who is insensible to all feeling of pride in the noble edifices of his country. Love of country, that variety of feelings which altogether constitute what we properly call patriotism, consist in part of the admi

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