exhibited she treated me with gingerbread and confectionaries; but so strong was my contempt for her, that they never entered my lips, but were tossed into the pig-stye when I went home. However, not to be outdone by her in finesse, I was equally tractable and obedient; I fed her cat with delicacies, and even treated the old woman with tobacco, which, although I would not have poisoned her, I most sincerely wished had been some drug that might have inflicted pains similar to those she had made me feel; and while we seemed to be metamorphosed into the best friends in the world, not Iago himself was a more consummate hypocrite than I, for not one moment did I cease to meditate on some scheme of revenge. I am fully aware that this rather detracts from my character, as it displays a duplicity very unbecoming in any human being, and almost disgusting at my age; but I trust the reader will at least give me credit for my sincerity, in thus frankly acknowledging my early depravity: I have already told where I was taught, both by precept and example.

I at last hit upon a strange plan for sating my resentment, and my heart already chuckled in the delightful anticipation. Mrs Skae was a superstitious and bigotted member of the Episcopal Church, and had very improperly, not to say profanely, taught her parrot to repeat several of the petitions and responses in the Litany, which it would scream out on every occasion, always concluding with the Doxology; for which qualification the bird was held in high estimation by Marion, and some other devout females of her own class. One old-maiden lady had offered ten guineas for this wonderful parrot; but this Marion, although poor, had refused, declaring that death alone should divide her from pretty Poll. I have already mentioned my expertness in pronouncing certain words and phrases, which, when acquired, were to me an unknown tongue; but I had gradually come to comprehend their meaning; and as my knowledge extended, my stock of expressions enlarged; which will not be wondered at, when it is recollected with whom I associated at home. My good be

VOL. XV.

haviour at school now procured me every possible indulgence, and I embraced every opportunity of being alone with the parrot, applying myself most sedulously to teach it a language very different from the Litany. I was a zealous teacher, and had an apt scholar; it spoke remarkably plain, and could repeat many of my choicest expressions with great fluency; and my only fear now was, lest it should betray me by a premature disclosure of its scholarship, before my purpose was accomplished; however, fortune proved propitious, and I found my pupil so much of a proficient, that I longed for an exhibition.

One day two ladies, one of them a stranger, came to visit Marion; when the stranger said, she had heard such an account of the parrot, as made her wish for auricular demonstration. Nothing could have been more flattering to Marion, and they proposed adjourning to Poll, after some girls had repeated their lessons. I stole to the apartment of my feathered scholar, repeated what I thought necessary, and was highly pleased with the responses I received. The ladies came in, and I withdrew, but no farther than the door, with my ear to the key-hole. Poll was addressed by Marion, in the style which generally called forth the Litany as a reply. On the present occasion, the response was so different, that the poor woman stood in amazement; Poll continued with great loquacity, and articulated so plainly, as not to be misunderstood; the ladies stared and blushed, while Marion stood like Horror personified, ready to sink into the earth with shame and vexation. The garrulous animal continued in the same strain, and when no effort could induce it to change the subject, the ladies left the room filled with astonishment. Marion, overpowered with confusion at the awkward exhibition of her favourite, appealed to her friend, whether she had not heard Poll often repeat many parts of the Litany. This was confirmed: "But how could it learn what we have now heard?" said the stranger.

The school-mistress recollected the time I had lately spent with Poll, and I was instantly accused of having

U

corrupted the animal; complaint was again made to my father, and I was once more summoned for trial, with Mrs Skae for my accuser. Suspicion and circumstantial evidence were very much against me; but no direct proof could be adduced, and I was dismissed from the bar, after a severe reprimand, and a verdict of "Not Proven." The school-mistress, however, now refused to receive me back on any conditions; but I had the satisfaction of hearing soon after, that the favourite parrot had been sentenced to a capital punishment, for profaneness and immorality.

I was now sent to the parish-school with my brothers. The schoolmaster was, I believe, a good easy man,' but old, formal, and indolent, and, provided his pupils were quiet and orderly, they might be as lazy as himself. Either too ignorant to discover, or too careless to pursue the means for treating different dispositions to stimulate the indolent, encourage and assist the eager aspirant, to cheer the timid, or invigorate the torpid, was no part of his system; his daily progress was like that of a blind horse in a mill; and he seemed equally glad with his pupils when the tasks of the day were finished. An instance of his inattention will illustrate his character: I have seen my eldest brother, David, and some other dunderheads in the school, sit for more than a week on an arithmetical question, which the master had written on their slates; when they were foiled in performing the operation, they would blot out what they had vainly endeavoured to solve, and walk boldly up for another, which he would write down, possibly to share the same fate. He was peevish, rather than stern; a trifling fault would have been punished with a stroke of his palm on the cheek, but a severe flogging seldom took place; hence I conclude, that, although irritable, he was not vindictive. I continued there for two years, during which no incident occurred worth recording. Under such a teacher, my progress in education, it will readily be supposed, was not great, for though naturally of an active disposition, I preferred sport to study. My brothers and I now came in

closer contact than we had hitherto done, and it did not lead to the happiness of either, for we lived in a state of open and avowed hostility to each other. At home, they had been taught, although not by precept, yet by parental example, to hate me; while I, in return, lost no opportu nity of shewing that I defied and despised them. They always called me by the nickname of Gleyed Gibbie; and I distinguished them by the appellations of Doofart Davie and Peevish Patie. Seldom a day passed but David and I were at fistycuffs; he had the advantage of me by nearly three years of age, and a proportionate superiority in size; but this was more than compensated by my innate courage and pugilistic skill: Peter I despised, as too feeble an antagonist to strike, and only laughed at, and mocked him, which kept him in a state of constant irritation. Our warfare at length became so desperate, that daily complaints were made to my father; and as I was always prejudged, I was punished without due investigation. On one occasion, David had really been the aggressor; we had a pitched battle, and I sent him home with a bloody face and black eyes; a severe whipping followed, I not being permitted to plead the provocation I had received: this injustice, instead of humbling, aroused me to revenge; and I became so formidable to David, that he refused to attend the school, and, had he understood the term, I am sure would have sworn law-borrows against me. My father, therefore, found it necessary to effect our separation, and I was removed from school, although my future destiny was undetermined.

I was now ten years of age, strong and robust; in the fatiguing studies of reading, writing, and arithmetic, I had made no distinguished progress, but had improved remarkably in such exercises as were more congenial to my disposition. I could ride, not only at full gallop, but fearlessly leap a five-barred gate,-swim,

climb trees,-shoot flying,-play all the games at cards known to my older associates,—was a proficient in the slang of the stable, and under the tuition of my friends there, as

well as in the kitchen and dairy, was making rapid progress in the vernacular idiom of vulgar gallantry, some endeavours being also making to initiate me in the practice.

Some moralist (if I recollect rightly, Shenstone, in his Essays on Men and Manners) expresses his wonder that young people in low life preserve their chastity, considering their incapacity for intellectual enjoyment, their high health, youth, the stimulus of strong passions, with the provocations of unrestrained intercourse, and loose conversation. This remark, although, perhaps, of less general application than the writer imagined, is such as would naturally occur to an accurate observer of low life; and when I reflect, as I have often since done, on what passed between the sexes with whom I daily associated, the levities of conversation which I heard, and that seemed to give equal pleasure to both parties,-when I think on what I have witnessed, the wanton dalliance and romping freedoms which were fondly taken, and willingly allowed; I say, when I reflect on all these, I am inclined to join in wonder with the moralist above mentioned, at least in as far as respected the servants in my father's family, where almost all the senses united to contaminate the

mind, and pollute the imagination : and although I have no wish to set myself up as a moral-monger, and a teacher of dry, didactic precepts, yet, should any one who is, or hopes to be, a parent, glance at this page, I would beg him or her seriously to reflect upon the consequences which may, and generally do result from children having a familiar intercourse with servants. This error is most general, in what are termed the middle ranks in life; and I shall conclude my moralizings by saying, that however unfortunate in other respects, it was certainly for the advantage of my morals that I was now removed from those who had been my associates and tutors, and whom I still considered as my friends; for I now began to take delight in imitating the freedoms of which I had so many examples; and the language which at first I uttered, merely because I saw it gratified others, I now repeated, because it was beginning to afford pleasure to myself.

But my brothers and I continued to quarrel; and as our warfare seemed interminable, my father boarded ine with a clergyman, in a distant part of the country. What followed, shall be related in the second part of this history.

AFTER wandering about alone, and without any direct purpose, du ring the greater part of one of those days of uncommon calm and settled stillness, so fitted to inspire a pensive and pleasing melancholy, I recollected that I had been invited by my friend, Mr W., to join the mirth and festivity of his kirn, or harvest-home. It was almost the end of autumn, and the harvest had been abundant, and the weather favourable. Few remains of the crops were to be seen, and those lingering relics were thinly scattered over the colder and more backward parts of the country. The bare and deserted fields, contrasted with the well-stocked farm-yards, while they suggested the approach of winter, disarmed it of all its terrors, by giv ing the comfortable assurance of

plenty and security. Beneath the hedge-rows, and in the lonings, the fallen leaves were beginning to fill the hollows, or gather into broad rustling heaps, shifting and crackling beneath the foot, or dropping from the branches with slow and wavering motion. Those that still clung with a mere tenacious closeness to the boughs, displayed, in their paleness, their faded and shrivelled appearance, evident marks that they too, linger as they would behind their fellows, were chilled by the breath of Time, and that age and decay were upon them. The sky was calm, breathlessly calm, but not clear. There was a kind of sober grayness spread over the whole horizon; not dense enough to be called cloudy, yet too much so to be bright. The earth seemed reposing after the busy

toils of autumn, and the heavens regarding it with a peaceful smile; but in that smile there was some thing of deep solemnity. It was like the calm, thoughtful smile with which an aged, grey-headed patriarch would regard his family, gathered peacefully around him, and reaping the fruits of his industry and care. I gazed around me with a bosom filled with indescribable emotions. I felt happy, too deeply happy for mirth; joyous hilarity would at that time have appeared rude and boisterous, if not insulting; but the slight est symptom of fretfulness or discontent would have appeared an ungrateful crime against the bounty of benignant Nature. I paced, silently musing, along; often turning and gazing around me, and at length seated myself upon a grey stone in the midst of a heathy moor, and directed my view to the western skies, then gleaming in all the glories of evening. They were lovely beyond description, shining in all the various shades of crimson radiance, from the faint and distant tinge, mingling with the cerulean and stainless depths of ether, till where, in the immediate vicinity of the setting orb, they shone with such brilliant and dazzling intensity, as if they were openings into the living fountains of heavenly light.

How long I might have continued in rapturous contemplation of the beautiful scene I know not; but my reverie was suddenly disturbed by the barking of a shepherd's-dog, and the cheerful and frank salutation of his master, who was on his way to the kirn; and speedily recollecting myself, I arose and accompanied him. After a hearty welcome from Mr W., followed by a little good-humoured chiding, for my delay in coming, I joined the happy company; and in the excitement of good cheer, and the sympathy of joyous faces around me, soon forgot, in a great measure, my former serious meditations, in so far, at least, as to join their sports and mirth with sufficient glee and cordiality. Among the company, several of whom were strangers to me, I recognised my old friend and school-fellow, Henry M

I accosted him; he started, gazed in my face, uttered a short exclamation of

surprise and joy, and grasping my hand warmly and fondly, asked me, with all his customary kindness, concerning my health and welfare. After the first moments of recognition were over, I could not help observing how much he was changed from the lively, thoughtless youth, the gayest of the gay, with whom I had spent many a day of boyish mirth and frolic. His high, fair, and open forehead, was marked with lines of thought, it might be of sorrow; his light blue, laughing eyes, had lost their former mirthful expression, and were become slightly hollow, darkened by a gloomy drooping of his eyebrows, and dimmed with a pensive sadness; his cheek had partly lost its exuberant glow of health, and though still of a healthful appearance, had something of a more delicate and thoughtful hue; upon the whole, his looks and manner displayed a melancholy so deeply settled upon him, as to be beyond his power to shake it off. I was anxious to discover the cause, and endeavour ed to lead him to explain it to me, but he avoided it with such a trembling sensibility, that I felt it would be cruelty to press upon that subject any farther, and accordingly restrain ed my curiosity in the best manner I could.

In the mean while, the mirth went on, and increased; the glass went merrily round, and songs were called for. One young man, who appeared to possess a happy flow of light animal spirits, which made him the very life of the meeting, when called upon for his song, sung one which appeared to have been made for the express purpose, and of which the following is an exact copy:

Come, ye rantin' lads an' lasses!

Cheerfu' wives an' husbands come !

Haste, gudeman! fill up our glasses,

Drink! our toast is, Harvest-Home! Far be thoughts o' gloomy sadness,

Blithely let us laugh and sing; Swell the shout o' joyfu' gladness,

Till the rafters echoing ring! Troubles a' ha'e fled before us,

Days o' toil, an' nights o' care; Sleep may soundly now come o'er us,— Storms can break our rest nae mair : Winter, threatening, dark an' dreary,

Wrap'd in gloom an' tempest, come !