spare, and, having begun reading it, I could not leave off. Those tales opened to me a world I had not known before-the world of the imagination. The hours passed away, and still I read on. I look back upon that experience as one of those few vivid ones that give us, when first known, exquisite pleasure. I had not the means of following up at once my reading in this department of literature, unless I add the ever charming "Pilgrim's Progress" which delighted me then and delights me still; but after I had begun to work in the brickfield, I became acquainted with "Robinson Crusoe," which also charmed me, and with certain cheap serials which a few of the men used to read. My first romance fascinated me as much as the fairy tales had done. I do not suppose that some of this reading was of a very high tone, moral or intellectual; but I do not remember that it produced any bad effect upon my mind, and it was certainly the means of my keeping up my taste for reading at a time when more serious books would have been too hard to master.

The lesson this has taught me is the great value of good wholesome light reading, such as we now have provided so abundantly. The Leisure Hour and Sunday at Home first came -out in those days, and formed a part of my reading. I do not think The Fireside was then published.* I read also all "Chambers' Mis-cellany," "Information for the People," and some of Chambers' other publications which were lent me by the clergyman of the parish. Another gentleman lent me Shakespeare; but most of the masterpieces of English literature were as yet unknown to me. They were to minister to an improved capacity later on. I should like to record my strongest conviction that no greater good has ever been done to the people of this country than by the publication of good light literature, such as I have mentioned. I am sure it has a high educational and moral value. When I look at the cover of Home Words I am reminded strongly of passages in my life; only, to make it complete, in addition to the pictures there, I should like to add one of a boy reading in a brickmaker's cottage, or in the field amongst the stacks of bricks.

This kind of desultory reading went on at intervals during the summer months; but

*The Fireside started in 1864.

winter brought a great diminution of physical labour, and consequently more time and energy for study. And now I have to mention, with loving and grateful respect, the name of the Rev. W. F. Lanfear, now rector of Avington, Berks. He became at that time my generous and patient helper in prosecuting my studies, and continued to act that part for more than five years. I am glad to be able to testify to the kind and unostentatious help he rendered a working lad, without any expectation of its ever being made known to any one besides ourselves. Under his direction I studied history, geography, arithmetic, English and Latin grammar, and theology. The last was my favourite subject, and I both read books and wrote essays upon theological subjects.

Some of my experiences at that time were a little curious. Thus I was compelled to do my writing at night, after the other inmates of the house had retired to rest, and the fire burnt out. I had therefore to sit in the cold winter evenings without a fire; and as my friends could not afford to give me candles, I used to buy them with any chance coppers I obtained, and to sit up writing until my candle burnt out; and then undressed in the dark, shivering with the cold. One curious fact I learnt at that time was this; that a Barcelona nut will, if stuck on a pin, and set light to, burn long enough to allow a person to undress himself. This I have many times proved.

My theological essays at length played an important part in my history; for when I was seventeen years old my dear clerical friend told me one day that he wished me to go the next day to a college in a London suburb, that the Principal might inquire into my attainments, and that he would be obliged if I would take with me a small parcel. I took the parcel, which was wrapped in brown paper, went to the college, and remained there two days. There I was examined by most of the lecturers, and when I returned to my friend I took back the same parcel I had brought. It was not till a twelvemonth afterwards that I discovered it had contained my manuscripts, and that it had served as a kind of testimonial of my qualification for admittance into the college, where for three years I ceased to be "a solitary student." There I was conducted by regular paths, and by the hands of trained guides, into the ordinary fields of learning. There I had plenty of books and of the right

sort. There I had companions who were bound for the same goal. And there long vistas of knowledge were opened up to me, of whose existence I had been ignorant hitherto. There also I learned the pleasure of success, of the mastery of difficulties, of the acquisition of clear ideas, and there I became prepared for a different kind of work in life from what I had been accustomed to before.

But I look back now with a cherished memory to the years when I was "a solitary student"-I think of the many happy hours that I spent in that character; of the relief from weariness and monotony that my studies afforded me; of the bad company and vice and frivolous amusements from which they saved me; of the acquaintance I made through them with noble thoughts, and noble deeds, and noble men; of the pleasant feasts of the imagination that they furnished me; of the intellectual pleasure that they supplied in default of others of an outward kind; and I am ready to acknowledge that even if they had produced no change in my mode of life, they would of themselves have been a great reward.

My experience has led me to sympathise strongly with the improved means of education which have now been set on foot in this country. I rejoice to see the children of the work

ing classes obtaining now such an education as ought to make study easier to them than it was to me, other things being equal; and I would fain hope that many of them on leaving school will become, to some extent at least, solitary students. I do not see that study NEED make them proud, or self-conceited, or neglectful of their proper work. There must be workers with the hands as well as with the head, but there is no reason, in my opinion, why all should not share to some extent in that grand heritage of knowledge which our Heavenly Father gave us to search into, when He made this wonderful world, and gave us minds to study it. It has hitherto been the case with most of our race, that

SIMILAR play-of a more deliberate character-had the famous Garrick for its author. Dr. Hill, a well-known physician, and the great actor were on anything but friendly terms; and after the performance of a farce entitled "The Rout," which the Doctor had written, Garrick struck off the following lines:

Dr. Hill did not like this, and made an attack on Garrick's provincialisms, especially his pronunciation of the letter I. Garrick thus responded:

"If 'tis true, as you say, that I've injured a letter, I'll change my note soon, and I hope for the better: May the right use of letters, as well as of men, Hereafter be fixed by the tongue and the pen: Most devoutly I wish that they both have their due, And that I may be never mistaken for U."

A wealthy old gentleman named Gould, announced his marriage to a young lady of nineteen in the following couplet :

"So you see, my dear sir, though eighty years old, A girl of nineteen falls in love with old Gould." The reply was crushing :

"A girl of nineteen may love Gould, it is true: But believe me, dear sir, it is gold without U."

Still harping on these letters, some of my readers will remember the old-fashioned piece of gallantry that was wrapped up in a riddle. "How can the alphabet be reduced by a letter?" asks the gentleman. "Give it up," responds the lady. "When U and I are made one," is the quick rejoinder.

"Peerless yet hapless maid of Q,

Accomplished L N G, Never again shall I and U

Together sip our T.

"For, ah! the Fates, I know not Y, Sent 'midst the flowers a B, Which ven'mous stung her in the I, So that she could not C.

"L N exclaimed, 'Vile spiteful B, If ever I catch U

On jess'mine, rosebud, or sweet P, I'll change your stinging Q. "I'll send you, like a lamb or U, Across the Atlantic C, From our delightful village Q, To distant O Y E.

"A stream runs from my wounded I, Salt as the briny C,

As rapid as the X or Y,

The OI O or D.

"Then fare thee well, insatiate B,

Who stung, nor yet knew Y, Since not for wealthy Durham's C Would I have lost my I.'

"They bear with tears fair LNG In funeral RA,

A clay-cold corse now doomed to B, While I mourn her D K.

"Ye nymphs of Q, then shun each B, List to the reason Y: For should a BCU at T,

He'll surely sting your I.

"Now in her lonely grave in Q, She's cold as cold can B, Whilst robins sing upon A U

Her dirge and LE G."

A lover, who began to fear the young lady's wisdom might interfere with domestic comfort, wrote his farewell in a couplet thus::

"YY u r, YY u b, YY i cur for me."

[Too wise you are, too wise you be, Too wise I see you are for me.] The following is an old stereotyped Joe Miller. At the Guildhall it was proved that a man who pretended that his name was Linch, was really Inch. "I see," said the judge, "that the proverb is verified: this man, being allowed an Inch, has taken an L."

But we must turn for a moment from a gay to a sober mood, while we consider George Herbert's quaint conceit :-

"Jesu is in my heart: His sacred Name

Is deeply gravèd there; but th' other week
A great affliction broke the little frame
Even all to pieces, which I went to seek ;
And first I found the corner where was J,
After which ES, and next where U was grav'd:
When I had got these parcels, instantly
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart He was I Ease U,
And to my whole is JESU."

The idea, though somewhat forced, is pretty; and nothing can be sweeter than the lesson it teaches to the troubled children of God.

While in more sober frame I might notice a peculiarity in the form of our word preach. By striking off seriatim its initial letters, we get preach, reach, each. So "Preach the preach as to reach each. Gospel to every creature." If every English parson were to put the word in this threefold form over his writing table, it would be no worse for his congregation.

The letter W is well adapted for literal pleasantries. It is said there is the following epitaph on William Wilson, tailor, in Lambeth Churchyard:

"Here lies the body of W. W.,

Who never more will trouble you, trouble you." A similar epitaph, I believe, was suggested for William Wordsworth, the poet. Before I heard of either, I had written the following in a young lady's birthday book, below my signature, C. W. Bardsley,

"Remember, when this name you C,

For marriage fee I will not trouble you,
But gratis at the altar W,

And sacred shall this promise B."

At a trial in Lancashire, some years ago,

a clergyman of the name of Wood was examined as a witness. He gave his name as Ottiwell Wood. The judge said, "Pray, how do you spell your name?" The old man replied promptly, "O double T, I double U, E double L, double U, double O D." The judge, after several efforts to follow him, gave it up, amid much laughter. I fear Tom Hood made pronunciation subserve metre, when he wrote,

"But tired of always looking at the coaches,

And used to brisker life, both man and wife Began to suffer NU E's approaches."

Of the letter H a whole chapter could be written. No character in history has ever met with such ill-treatment. Utterly ignored one moment, he has been compelled to be a witness of his own degradation the next. He never knows where you will have him. A lady, the other day, assured her guests that "she had been trying to 'eat

the stove in the cellar for the last fortnight, but had failed," "She'd want an iron constitution to digest it," whispered one of the friends, speaking, of course, ironically. It was quite natural that the gentleman, who sat down to two covered dishes, and was recommended by the lady of the house to take the one on his right, "for it was a little 'otter," should do as he was bid, impelled by curiosity to see what such a strange dish was like. He says that a young otter tastes uncommonly like hashed mutton!

We

As a play upon a letter, nothing will probably equal Lord Byron's lines! make no apology for giving it in full:-"'Twas whispered in heaven, 'twas muttered in hell,

And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell :
On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest,
And the depths of the ocean its presence con-
fessed.

'Twill be found in the sphere, when 'tis riven asunder,

Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder.

'Twas allotted to man with his earliest breath, Attends at his birth, and awaits him in death: It presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health, Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth.

Without it the soldier and seaman may roam,
But woe to the wretch who expels it from home.
In the whispers of conscience its voice will be
found,

Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drowned. "Twill not soften the heart, and though deaf to the ear,

'Twill make it acutely and instantly hear.

But in shade let it rest, like a delicate flower,Oh, breathe on it softly, it dies in an hour."

The last four lines are worth studying. Henry Mayhew's parody is almost unique in cleverness :

"I dwells in the Herth, and I breathes in the Hair: If you searches the Hocean, you'll find that I'm there.

The first of all Hangels in Holympus am Hi, Yet I'm banished from 'Eaven, expelled from on 'igh.

But though on this Horb I am destined to grovel,
I'm ne'er seen in an 'ouse, in an 'ut, nor an 'ovel.
Not an 'oss, nor an 'unter e'er bears me, alas!
But often I'm found on the top of a Hass.

I resides in a Hattic, and loves not to roam,
And yet I'm invariably absent from 'ome.
Though 'ushed in the 'urricane, of the Hatmo-

sphere part,

I enters no 'ed, I creeps into no 'art.

Only look, and you'll see in the Heye I appear; Only hark and you'll 'ear me just breathe in the Hear.

I'm never in 'ealth, have with Fysic no power; I dies in a month, but comes back in a Hour!"

But a curious interest attaches to this letter, for a reason not known to all my readers. Until the 18th century the word "ache" was pronounced like "h" (aitch); just as tack was pronounced (as in the Pentateuch) tache, and kirk, church. For instance, in Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar" we find under " August,"

Shak

made a play upon ache and h easy. speare twice took advantage of it in "Much Ado about Nothing." Beatrice says:

"By my troth I am exceeding ill-heigh-ho! Margaret: For a Hawk, a Horse, or a Husband? Beatrice: 'Tis the letter that begins them all."

So again in Anthony and Cleopatra :

"Anthony Thou bleedest apace.

Scarus: I have had a wound here, that was like a T,

But now it is like an H (ache).”

In one of Heywood's epigrams (1566) we find a similar pleasantry :-

"His worst among letters in the cross-row:
For if thou find him either in thine el-bow,
In thy arm, or leg, in any degree:

In thine head, or teeth, or toe, or knee:
Into what place soever H may pike him,
Wherever thou find ache, thou shalt not like him."

In "Wit's Recreation" (1640) again we read :

N. O. P.

Q. R. S.

T. U. V. W. X. Y. Z.

A blessed change;
Down every foreigner;

God help James;

Keep Lord Marr;

Noble Ormond Preserve; Quickly resolve, Stewart; Truss up vile Whigs; Exert your zeal.

To drink to T. U. V. W. would be pleasing enough to those who were in the secret. The young Jacobite miss, who had worked out the letters P. C. on her sampler, screened herself by pretending it was for "Protestant Church," and not "Prince Charlie." P.P.C. would probably have been more suitable, as