■ I 
 
 % m 
 
 ri # 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Treasure %oom 
 

Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://archive.org/details/fathersmemoirsof01malk 
 

 If; 
 
 W4 
 
 : 
 
 FATHERS MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 HIS CHILD 
 
'■■''• ton VuitCfKi d 6jj Lnn-jm.a i 
 
FATHER'S MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 HIS CHILD. 
 
 BY 
 
 BEN J. HEATH MALKIN, ESQ. 
 
 M.A. F.A.S. 
 
 Great loss to all that ever him did see; 
 Great loss to all, but greatest loss to me. 
 
 Astropheu 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, 
 PATERNOSTER ROW J 
 
 BY T. BUNSLEr, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1806. 
 

 
TO 
 
 THOMAS JOHNES, 
 
 OF HAFOD, ESQ. M. P. 
 
 LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF 1 CARDIGAN, 
 &C. &C. &C. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I have been influenced by se- 
 veral motives, in prefixing your name to the 
 following pages. My pen seems destined 
 to owe its employment, in some shape or 
 other, to Hafod. 
 
 "When I first traversed your mountains, 
 it was without the most distant thought of 
 engaging a set of readers as the companions 
 or followers of my journey. The fever of 
 authorship never preyed upon my better 
 sense, till your magic creation in the wilds 
 of Cardiganshire gave vent to its fury. The 
 
 a 
 
 4-4-4-4-10 
 
11 
 
 singular combinations of beauty and gran- 
 deur, the contrast of wildness and improve- 
 ment, to be found within the circuit of your 
 estate, first disposed me to extend my ex- 
 cursion through the remaining counties of 
 South Wales, and to attempt a description 
 of its picturesque scenes. Your kind offer 
 to facilitate the historical and antiquarian 
 objects of my enquiry, on my second tour, 
 furnished me with my original introduction 
 to your domestic circle : and it was princi- 
 pally to suggestions there enforced, that 
 this volume owes its appearance. Its first 
 duties should therefore be paid, where they 
 so naturally belong. 
 
 You may perhaps recollect, that while 
 I was staying with you last summer, our 
 conversations were nearly as rambling and 
 as various, as our rides over your new 
 mountain-farms, or as the subject matter of 
 these preliminary remarks seems likely to 
 be. We were naturally carried forward, 
 from the rugged sublimity of nature, inter- 
 spersed, here with the opening promise, and 
 
iff- 
 
 there with the thriving luxuriance of judi- 
 cious cultivation;— from the forest and the 
 field before us, into the track of human 
 life, implicated as it is with pleasures which 
 blossom but for a season, and pains which 
 are indigenous, and grow rank and wanton 
 in the soil. On these occasions, it was 
 impossible for me not to dwell on an event, 
 which had drawn a deep furrow over the 
 level of my happiness. It would have been 
 unnatural, to have concealed the mark of 
 an afflicting dispensation, in society so ca- 
 pable of consoling the survivor, and appre- 
 ciating the merit of the departed. In the 
 interchange of our thoughts on this subject, 
 the task of furnishing the public with the 
 following facts was urged upon me, at once 
 as a tribute to the latter, and a relief to the 
 feelings of the former. 
 
 This had been repeatedly mentioned by 
 others ; but I as often declined it, at least 
 in detail. Yet, that I might not altogether 
 oppose the wishes of my friends, I trans- 
 mitted a short sketch of this little life, to be 
 
 lj~i|4 l i 10. 
 
IV 
 
 inserted in a periodical publication, and 
 meant with that to have closed the subject 
 on my part for ever. Though I thought to 
 have acquitted myself of every claim by 
 this account, there were some persons so 
 far interested in it, as to express through 
 the same channel a desire, to receive the 
 original documents from my hands. They 
 represented with sufficient reason, that a 
 character of such high, yet vague preten- 
 sions, required the sanction of some avowed 
 authority to confirm its truth, and of some 
 particular and as it were tangible facts, to 
 exemplify its general justice. 
 
 Still I felt a reluctance, especially at 
 that early period, to so melancholy and ha- 
 zardous an office. I strengthened my pre- 
 vious determination by considering, how 
 differently the world estimates the effusions 
 which give pleasure by the family fire-side. 
 At home, they derive a mixed value from in- 
 trinsic merit, from the partiality of kindred, 
 and from the evanescent circumstances of 
 local application. Add to this, that an 
 
editor or biographer is likely to be perpe- 
 tually verging towards extravagance, where 
 his feelings are awakened and his discretion 
 laid asleep, by personal ties and recent 
 events. With these arguments, which had 
 hitherto satisfied myself, I again resisted 
 your attack. It would be impertinent, to 
 enter further into them here. Suffice it to 
 say, that they were silenced by those, to 
 whose judgment I must surrender, and 
 whose sincerity I have always found supe- 
 rior to compliment or dissimulation. 
 
 But I have other inducements for ad- 
 dressing you in the present case. Our cir- 
 cumstances, opinions, and conduct, have 
 not been altogether dissimilar. We have 
 both of us felt, I hope we may say duly, 
 the importance of the office, which nature 
 and society have entrusted to our care. We 
 have both met with the best materials to 
 work upon. In this principally do we seem 
 to differ, that your task is now accomplish- 
 ed: mine, as far as the subject of these 
 memoirs is concerned, was prematurely 
 
VI 
 
 closed. At my first acquaintance with Ha- 
 fod, it seemed as if I saw, allowing for sex 
 and contingent varieties, the consummation 
 of what I had myself hoped and planned. 
 It was neither in your character nor mine, 
 to consider in a light and fantastic point of 
 view, the duty of forming a tender mind, 
 Elegant and tasteful accomplishments, 
 though highly desirable as appendages to a 
 liberal education, are the garnish, and not 
 the food of life. The music-room and the 
 drawing-academy, the circles of rank and 
 of refinement, may each be allowed their 
 attraction and their interest. The manners 
 of the polite world are chiefly satirised by 
 those, who have been foiled in their endea^ 
 vours to insinuate themselves within its 
 sphere. But there is a still higher ambi- 
 tion, of founding on the basis of useful and 
 reputable attainments, a rational and equa- 
 ble constitution of the mind: a sense of 
 human instability, to keep down the pride 
 of condition; and sentiments of personal 
 honour, to support its dignity. These, as 
 
Vll 
 
 well as all the secondary objects, you have 
 pursued with undeviating perseverance, and 
 with correspondent success. I could point 
 out more particularly the immediate bear- 
 ing of these remarks : but my young friend, 
 who at the age of thirteen, received from a 
 man, distinctively and most honourably 
 known to the public as Linnean Smith, the 
 tribute of a commendatory and affectionate 
 dedication, prefixed to one of his learned 
 and magnificent works, would draw no ad- 
 ditional honour from my public incense. 
 
 There is still another motive for this de- 
 dication, and that a selfish one. I am ap- 
 prehensive, lest so unusual an appeal to 
 public attention should, though you antici- 
 pate the contrary, bring down a severe cen- 
 sure on my temerity. Supposing my fears 
 to prove true, I shall hope, as you were in- 
 strumental towards my offence, to implicate 
 you in some share of my condemnation, 
 and thus alleviate its weight by partner- 
 ship. 
 
 Grainger, speaking of Tibullus's infancy, 
 
vm 
 
 has the following remark. " The human mind 
 does not always blossom at the same period ; 
 and it by no means follows that his child- 
 hood must have flourished, whose maturer 
 age has produced fair fruits of science. 
 Perhaps too, details of early excellence are 
 less useful than is commonly imagined, as 
 they often dispirit those who would other- 
 wise in due time have expanded into an 
 extensive reputation." 
 
 If it had been of little use, to have traced 
 the juvenile proficiency of Tibullus, an ele- 
 gant writer of the Augustan age, and as a 
 man remarkable, contrary to the bias of 
 contemporary poets, for his inflexible ad- 
 herence to the principles of liberty and of 
 the commonwealth, what excuse is to be 
 made for dwelling on the abortive efforts of 
 a genius, which was not suffered to hold on 
 its course to the completion of the seventh 
 year? Neither courts nor factions had so- 
 licited its accession to their party : the muses 
 had not yet admitted it to their toilet, nor 
 philosophy enrolled it among her priests. 
 
IX 
 
 Yet it gratifies curiosity, if it yield no pro- 
 fit more substantial, to be informed on what 
 plan the preceptors of an ingenuous and 
 enterprising youth have conducted his 
 studies. That a prominent example should 
 dispirit others, seems contrary to that al- 
 most instinctive emulation, which some- 
 times electrifies the indolent and kindles up 
 even the dull, in the well-contested rival- 
 ships of our public schools. Where the re- 
 sults of a system, as in the present case, are 
 denied to our enquiry, the argumentative 
 application of insulated facts and fortuitous 
 remarks is precluded. We are not to as- 
 sume, that because the bud, which was cut 
 off in spring, was fair, the fruit, had it 
 been spared, must have been rich in au- 
 tumn. Nor does it follow on the other hand, 
 that the autumnal fruit must have put forth 
 and germinated, with the first warm breezes 
 of the season. But we are not to hold as 
 nothing, what has not corresponded with 
 our most sanguine hopes. The blossom, 
 which was too short-lived to pamper the 
 
palate, or invigorate the habit with its "full 
 grown and concocted substance, was still 
 grateful in its odour and its blush. Re- 
 membrance is most sweet, and sympathy 
 most endearing, to those whom mutual pri- 
 vations have brought together. Should this 
 book beguile, but for an hour, the sorrows 
 of a single parent, brooding over a similar 
 loss, I shall not repent having put it to- 
 gether, though critics should disapprove, 
 or my bookseller shake his head at the ac- 
 count. 
 
 Yet there was with me a doubt of a dif- 
 ferent nature, which took its rise from a 
 prevailing folly of the time. The passion 
 for infantine and puerile exhibitions, so far 
 from having been a motive for taking ad- 
 vantage of the popular caprice, had almost 
 weighed upon my mind, to defer or aban- 
 don the project, and set your friendly wishes 
 at defiance. This town has of late been in 
 a fever of precocious admiration; ready to 
 catch at whatever might administer food to 
 the rage for novelty and the surprising. The 
 
xi 
 
 most approved models of just recitation, of 
 impressive eloquence, of passionate expres- 
 sion, have been laid on the shelf for inarti- 
 culate lispings, or at best for a parrot-taught 
 monotony, the effect of premature and mas- 
 ter-ridden study. The powers of music have 
 been called in, to inspire the fatuity of 
 childhood. Memory has been loaded with 
 all the lumber of misplaced erudition. But 
 these are not instances of a powerful and 
 overtopping mind. They may be evidences 
 of parts, but not of genius. Were I so- 
 liciting praise for a happy knack at any art, 
 or for the mere talent of imitation, I should 
 expect my pretensions to be treated with 
 contempt. But surely here is something to 
 delineate, which I could never have taught: 
 the result of natural ability, not of laboured 
 acquisition . something which art could 
 never have manufactured, nor neglect have 
 utterly destroyed. It seemed to have been 
 the growth of the climate, unfolded and 
 improved by culture, but not dependent on 
 jt for existence or support. On this view 
 
Xll 
 
 of my subject, have I been emboldened to 
 proceed ; and I am not afraid, lest the 
 hero of my tale should be confounded with 
 the common mass and vulgar rabble of 
 prodigies. But could it be supposed for a 
 moment, that I brought forward the pre- 
 sent, as a parallel or rival case, with that 
 of the Roscii, the Rosciae, or the Roscius- 
 culi, I should feel nothing but disgust; and 
 were it really so, I should deserve nothing 
 but shame. 
 
 On mentioning my design to some of 
 my friends, they expressed their regret, that 
 I had not determined on it sooner. It might 
 perhaps have been more acceptable to those 
 whose feelings were then more immediately 
 awakened by vicinity and personal ac- 
 quaintance. The moment for complying 
 with such temporary interest is indeed gone 
 by. It would however have been much 
 more proper, for these memoirs to have 
 slept in oblivion, unless they were to carry 
 with them their own passport, at whatever 
 distance of time they might chance to be 
 produced. In every other respect, but that 
 
Xlll 
 
 of catching attention while the object is still 
 before the eye, the interval must be consi- 
 dered as an advantage. Under the influence 
 of a calamity not yet overpast, the mind 
 must either have lost its spring, or have been 
 wound up to the opposite extreme of wild 
 and hyperbolical enthusiasm. In either 
 case, the writer would have been disquali- 
 fied from discharging. his memory faithfully, 
 or executing his censorial functions with any 
 tolerable impartiality. 
 
 Judging however by a question, which 
 has been put to me more than once, there 
 are probably those, who may treat the ex- 
 ercise of such a discretion, even at the dis- 
 tance of more than three years, as the mark 
 of a cold temperament and indifferent heart. 
 I have been asked, " How could you get 
 over such a loss ?" I need not say, that this 
 was not your question, for you could never 
 have found it on the list of possible inter- 
 rogatories : and to you, for that very reason, 
 will I answer it. 
 
 I got over this great loss, by consider- 
 
XIV 
 
 ing at once what I had left; how unavailing 
 the lengthened and excessive indulgence of 
 grief would have been to myself, and how 
 useless it would have rendered me to others. 
 Why should I have locked my breast against 
 the return of its accustomed tranquillity, 
 when so many others wisely reconcile them- 
 selves to breaches of domestic union, irre- 
 parable in kind as well as in degree ? Have 
 you never been threatened with a calamity, 
 which, had it befallen you in your only 
 hope, would have pressed more heavily 
 than even mine on me? Yet you would 
 have triumphed, though after many and 
 painful efforts, over the tyranny of despair. 
 When the first agonies of childless destitu- 
 tion had subsided into melancholy, but re- 
 signed and contemplative thought, you 
 would have reflected that these are the 
 trials, which constitute the tenure of human 
 life, even on its brightest and most attrac- 
 tive side. Your groves would indeed have 
 lost their music to your ears, and their en- 
 chantment to your eyes. The rush of your 
 
XV 
 
 mountain torrents would have been aggra- 
 vated into horror. The voice of your te- 
 nantry, breaking in as it did with unprece- 
 dented importunity on the performance of 
 divine service at the opening of your church, 
 had it not been heard with favour, would 
 have sounded like the knell of all that was 
 worth living for. Yet their necessities, their 
 sorrow, their loss, would at length have 
 roused you from your stupor, and taught 
 you to find your own relief, in the habi- 
 tual employment of administering to their 
 wants. 
 
 Besides this comparison of my own, 
 with the probable or actual circumstances 
 of others, I bore my disappointment the 
 better for the recollection, that personal re- 
 gards are selfish. If my thoughts were dis- 
 posed to dwell on the mortifying idea, that 
 society might have lost an ornament derived 
 to it through me, they were soon checked, 
 and ashamed of their presumption. Topics 
 of private bewailing or condolence, of what- 
 ever magnitude they may appear to the in- 
 
XVI 
 
 dividual, can never be modestly transferred 
 to general interest. But it was my princi- 
 pal consolation, that the change to him 
 must have been for the better. Supposing 
 the opinion to have been rational and pro- 
 bable, that the promise of this child would 
 have ripened into something more than fair 
 capacity and marketable talent, the pro- 
 longation of life was to himself perhaps the 
 less desirable on that very account. It 
 rarely happens, that the world affords even 
 the ordinary allowance of happiness to men 
 of transcendent faculties. Their merits are 
 too frequently denied the protection and 
 encouragement, to which they feel them- 
 selves entitled, from the private intimations 
 of their own scrutinizing spirit. When they 
 are most successful, the composure of their 
 minds does not always keep pace with the 
 prosperity of their fortunes. They neces- 
 sarily have but few companions ; few, who 
 are capable of appreciating their high en- 
 dowments, and entering into the grandeur of 
 their conceptions. Of these few, those who 
 
xvn 
 
 come the nearest to their own rank and 
 standard, those who might be the associates 
 of their inmost thoughts, and the partners of 
 their dearest interests, are too often envious 
 of their fame. It is a common remark, 
 that great men are not gregarious. This is 
 but too just; and so much of man's happi- 
 ness depends upon society, that the com- 
 parative solitude, to which a commanding 
 genius condemns its possessor, detracts con- 
 siderably from the sum of his personal en- 
 joyment. 
 
 While I am on this subject, I cannot 
 forbear enlarging somewhat on an instance 
 the more apposite, as being casually con- 
 nected with the subsequent pages. Hither- 
 to, it has confirmed the observation just 
 hazarded, on the probable fate of stubborn 
 originality in human life. There seems now 
 indeed some prospect, that the current will 
 turn : and I shall be eager, on the evidence 
 of the very first deponent, to disencumber 
 myself of an opinion, which pays so ill a 
 compliment to our nature. In the mean 
 
 b 
 
XV1I1 
 
 time, I am confident that you, and my other 
 readers of taste and feeling, will readily 
 forgive my travelling a little out of the re- 
 cord, for the purpose of descanting on 
 merit, which ought to be more conspicuous, 
 and which must have become so long since, 
 but for opinions and habits of an eccentric 
 kind. 
 
 It is, I hope, unnecessary to call your 
 attention to the ornamental device, round 
 the portrait in this book; but I cannot so 
 easily refrain from introducing to you the 
 designer* 
 
 Mr. William Blake* very early in life, 
 had the ordinary opportunities of seeing 
 pictures in the houses of noblemen and 
 gentlemen, and in the king's palaces. He 
 soon improved such casual occasions of 
 study, by attending sales at Langford's, 
 Christie's, and other auction-rooms. At ten 
 years of age he was put to Mr. Parses draw- 
 ing-school in the Strand, where he soon at- 
 tained the art of drawing from casts in plas- 
 ter of the various antiques. His father 
 
XIX 
 
 bought for him the Gladiator^ the Hercules* 
 the Venus of Medicis, and various heads, 
 hands, and feet. The same indulgent pa- 
 rent soon supplied him with money to buy 
 prints; when he immediately began his col- 
 lection, frequenting the shops of the print- 
 dealers, and the sales of the auctioneers. 
 Langford called him his little connoisseur; 
 and often knocked down to him a cheap 
 lot, with friendly precipitation. He copied 
 Raphael and Michael Angelo, Martin Hem- 
 skerck and Albert Durer, Julio Romano, 
 and the rest of the historic class, neglecting 
 to buy any other prints, however celebrated. 
 His choice was for the most part contemned 
 by his youthful companions, who were ac- 
 customed to laugh at what they called his 
 mechanical taste. At the age of fourteen, 
 he fixed on the engraver of Stuart's Athens 
 and West's Pylades and Orestes for his 
 master, to whom he served seven years ap- 
 prenticeship. Basire, whose taste was like 
 his own, approved of what he did. Two 
 years passed over smoothly enough, till two 
 
XX 
 
 other apprentices were added to the esta- 
 blishment, who completely destroyed its 
 harmony. Blake, not chusing to take part 
 with his master against his fellow appren- 
 tices, was sent out to make drawings. This 
 circumstance he always mentions with gra- 
 titude to Basire, who said that he was too 
 simple and they too cunning. 
 
 He Was employed in making drawings 
 from old buildings and monuments, and 
 occasionally, especially in winter, in en- 
 graving from those drawings. This occu- 
 pation led him to an acquaintance with 
 those neglected works of art, called Gothic 
 monuments. There he found a treasure, 
 which he knew how to value. He saw the 
 simple and plain road to the style of art at 
 which he aimed, unentangled in the intri- 
 cate windings of modern practice. The 
 monuments of Kings and Queens in West- 
 minster Abbey, which surround the chapel 
 of Edward the Confessor, particularly that 
 of King Henry the Third, the beautiful 
 monument and figure of Queen Elinor, 
 
XXI 
 
 Queen Philippa, King Edward the Third, 
 King Richard the Second and his Queen, 
 were among his first studies. All these he 
 drew in every point he could catch, fre^- 
 quently standing on the monument, and 
 viewing the figures from the top. The 
 heads he considered as portraits; and all 
 the ornaments appeared as miracles of art, 
 to his Gothicised imagination. He then 
 drew Aymer de Valence's monument, with 
 his fine figure on the top. Those exquisite 
 little figures which surround it, though 
 dreadfully mutilated, are still models for 
 the study of drapery. But I do not mean 
 to enumerate all his drawings, since they 
 would lead me over all the old monuments 
 in Westminster Abbey, as well as over 
 other churches in and about London. 
 
 Such was his employment at Basire's. 
 As soon as he was out of his time, he began 
 to engrave two designs from the History of 
 England, after drawings which he had made 
 in the holiday hours of his apprenticeship. 
 They were selected from a great number of 
 
XX11 
 
 historical compositions, the fruits of his 
 fancy. He continued making designs for 
 his own amusement, whenever he could 
 steal a moment from the routine of busi- 
 ness; and began a course of study at the 
 Royal Academy, under the eye of Mr. 
 Moser. Here he drew with great care, 
 perhaps all, or certainly nearly all the noble 
 antique figures in various views. But now 
 his peculiar notions began to intercept him 
 in his career. He professes drawing from 
 life always to have been hateful to him; 
 and speaks of it as looking more like death, 
 or smelling of mortality. Yet still he drew 
 a good deal from life, both at the academy 
 and at home. In this manner has he ma- 
 naged his talents, till he is himself almost 
 become a Gothic monument. On a view 
 of his whole life, he still thinks himself au- 
 thorized to pronounce, that practice and 
 opportunity very soon teach the language 
 of art : but its spirit and poetry, which are 
 seated in the imagination alone, never can 
 be taught ; and these make an artist. 
 
xxin 
 
 Mr. Blake has long been known to the 
 order of men among whom he ranks ; and 
 is highly esteemed by those, who can dis- 
 tinguish excellence under the disguise of 
 singularity. Enthusiastic and high flown 
 notions on the subject of religion have hi- 
 therto, as they usually do, prevented his 
 general reception, as a son of taste and of 
 the muses. The sceptic and the rational 
 believer, uniting their forces against the vi- 
 sionary, pursue and scare a warm and bril^ 
 liant imagination, with the hue and cry of 
 madness. Not contented with bringing 
 down the reasonings of the mystical philo- 
 sopher, as they well may, to this degraded 
 level, they apply the test of cold calculation 
 and mathematical proof to departments of 
 the mind, which are privileged to appeal 
 from so narrow and rigorous a tribunal. 
 They criticise the representations of corpo- 
 real beauty, and the allegoric emblems of 
 mental perfections ; the image of the visible 
 world, which appeals to the senses for a 
 testimony to its truth, or the type of fntu- 
 
XXIV 
 
 rily and the immortal soul, which identifies 
 itself with our hopes and with our hearts, 
 as if they were syllogisms or theorems, de- 
 monstrable propositions or consecutive co- 
 rollaries. By them have the higher powers 
 of this artist been kept from public notice, 
 and his genius tied down, as far as possible, 
 to the mechanical department of his pro- 
 fession. By them, in short, has he been 
 stigmatised as an engraver, who might do 
 tolerably well, if he was not mad. But 
 men, whose names will bear them out, in 
 what they affirm, have now taken up his 
 cause. On occasion of Mr. Blake engaging 
 to illustrate the poem of The Grave, some 
 of the first artists in this country have stept 
 forward, and liberally given the sanction of 
 ardent and encomiastic applause. Mr. 
 Fuseli, with a mind far superior to that 
 jealousy above described, has written some 
 introductory remarks in the Prospectus of 
 the work. To these he has lent all the pe* 
 netration of his understanding, with all the 
 energy and descriptive power characteristic 
 
XXV 
 
 of his style. Mr. Hope and Mr. Locke 
 have pledged their character as connoisseurs, 
 by approving and patronising these designs. 
 Had I been furnished with an opportunity 
 of shewing them to you, I should, on Mr. 
 Blake's behalf, have requested your con- 
 curring testimony, which you would not 
 have refused me, had you viewed them in 
 the same light. 
 
 Neither is the capacity of this untu- 
 tored proficient limited to his professional 
 occupation. He has made several irregular 
 and unfinished attempts at poetry. He has 
 dared to venture on the ancient simplicity; 
 and feeling it in his own character and man- 
 ners, has succeeded better than those, who 
 have only seen it through a glass. His ge- 
 nius in this line assimilates more with the 
 bold and careless freedom, peculiar to our 
 writers at the latter end of the sixteenth, 
 and former part of the seventeenth century, 
 than with the polished phraseology, and 
 just, but subdued thought of the eighteenth. 
 As the public have hitherto had no oppor- 
 
XXVI 
 
 tunity of passing sentence, on his poetical 
 powers, I shall trespass on jour patience, 
 while I introduce a few specimens from a 
 collection, circulated only among the au- 
 thor's friends, and richly embellished by his 
 pencil. 
 
 LAUGHING SONG. 
 
 When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, 
 And the dimpling stream runs laughing by, 
 When the air does laugh with our merry wit, 
 And the green hill laughs with the noise of it, 
 
 When the meadows laugh with lively green, 
 And the grasshopper laughs in this merry scene, 
 When Mary and Susan and Emily, 
 With their sweet round mouths, sing Ha, ha, he ! 
 
 When the painted birds laugh in the shade, 
 Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread, 
 Come live and be merry and join with me, 
 To sing the sweet chorus of Ha, ha, he ! 
 
XXV11 
 
 The Fairy Glee of Oberon, which Ste- 
 vens's exquisite music has familiarised to 
 modern ears, will immediately occur to the 
 reader of these laughing stanzas. We may 
 also trace another less obvious resemblance 
 to Jonson, in an ode gratulatory to the Right 
 Honourable Hierome, Lord Weston, for his 
 return from his embassy, in the year 1 632. 
 The accord is to be found, not in the words 
 nor in the subject ; for either would betray 
 imitation : but in the style of thought, and, 
 if I may so term it, the date of the ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Such pleasure as the teeming earth 
 Doth take in easy nature's birth, 
 
 When she puts forth the life of every thing: 
 And in a dew of sweetest rain, 
 She lies delivered without pain, 
 
 Of the prime beauty of the year, the spring. 
 
 The rivers in their shores do run, 
 The clouds rack clear before the sun, 
 The rudest winds obey the calmest air : 
 
xxvm 
 
 Rare plants from every bank do rise, 
 And every plant the sense surprise, 
 Because the order of the whole is fair ! 
 
 The very verdure of her nest, 
 Wherein she sits so richly drest, 
 
 As all the wealth of season there was spread ; 
 Doth show the graces and the hours 
 Have multiplied their arts and powers, 
 
 In making soft her aromatic bed. 
 
 Such joys, such sweets, doth your return 
 Bring all your friends, fair lord, that burn 
 
 With love, to hear your modesty relate 
 The bus'ness of your blooming wit, 
 With all the fruit shall follow it, 
 
 Both to the honour of the kins and state. 
 
 The following poem of Blake is in a 
 different character. It expresses with ma- 
 jesty and pathos, the feelings of a bene- 
 volent mind, on being present at a sublime 
 display of national munificence and cha- 
 rity. 
 
XXIX 
 
 HOLY THURSDAY. 
 
 'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, 
 The children walking two and two, in red and blue and 
 
 green ; 
 Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white 
 
 as snow, 
 Till into the high dome of Paul's, they, like Thames' 
 
 waters, flow. 
 
 Oh ! What a multitude they seemed, these flowers of 
 
 London town ! 
 Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their 
 
 own! 
 The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of 
 
 lambs; 
 Thousands of little boys and girls, raising their innocent 
 
 hands. 
 
 •) 
 
 Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice 
 of song, * . ■■■■"* 
 
 Or like harmonious thunderings, the seats of heaven 
 among ! 
 
XXX 
 
 Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the 
 
 poor : 
 Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your 
 
 door. 
 
 The book of Revelation, which may 
 well be supposed to engross much of Mr. 
 Blake's study, seems to have directed him, 
 in common with Milton, to some of the 
 foregoing images. " And I heard as it 
 were the voice of a great multitude, and as 
 the voice of many waters, and as the voice 
 of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: 
 for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 
 Milton comprises the mighty thunderings 
 in the epithet " loud/' and adopts the com- 
 parison of many waters, which image our 
 poet, having in the first stanza appropriated 
 differently, to their flow rather than to their 
 sound, exchanges in the last for that of a 
 mighty wind. 
 
XXXI 
 
 He ended ; and the heav'nly audience loud 
 Sung hallelujah, as the sound of seas, 
 Through multitude that sung. 
 
 Paradise Lost, Boofcx. 64U 
 
 It may be worth a moment's considera- 
 tion, whether Dr. Johnson's remarks on de- 
 votional poetry, though strictly just where 
 he applies them, to the artificial composi- 
 tions of Waller and Watts, are universally 
 and necessarily true. Watts seldom rose 
 above the level of a mere versifier. Waller, 
 though entitled to the higher appellation 
 of poet, had formed himself rather to ele- 
 gance and delicacy, than to passionate 
 emotions or a lofty and dignified deport- 
 ment. The devotional pieces of the He- 
 brew bards are clothed in that simple lan- 
 guage, to which Johnson with justice 
 ascribes the character of sublimity. There 
 is no reason therefore, why the poets of other 
 nations should not be equally successful, if 
 the}' think with the same purity, and ex- 
 
XXX11 
 
 press themselves in the same unaffected 
 terms. He says indeed with truth, that 
 " Repentance trembling in the presence of 
 the judge, is not at leisure for cadences and 
 epithets/' But though we should exclude 
 the severer topics from our catalogue, mercy 
 and benevolence may be treated poetically, 
 because they are in unison with the mild 
 spirit of poetry. They are seldom treated 
 successfully; but the fault is not in the 
 subject. The mind of the poet is too often 
 at leisure for the mechanical prettinesses of 
 cadence and epithet, when it ought to be 
 engrossed by higher thoughts. Words and 
 numbers present themselves unbidden, when 
 the soul is inspired by sentiment, elevated 
 by enthusiasm, or ravished by devotion. 
 I leave it to the reader to determine, whether 
 the following stanzas have any tendency to. 
 vindicate this species of poetry ; and whether 
 their simplicity and sentiment at all make 
 amends for their inartificial and unassuming 
 construction. 
 
XXX1U 
 
 THE DIVINE IMAGE. 
 
 To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, 
 All pray in their distress, 
 And to these virtues of delight 
 Return their thankfulness. 
 
 For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, 
 Is God our Father dear : 
 And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, 
 Is man, his child and care. 
 
 For Mercy has a human heart ; 
 Pity, a human face ; 
 And Love, the human form divine, 
 And Peace, the human dress. 
 
 Then every man, of every clime, 
 That prays in his distress, 
 Prays to the human form divine, 
 Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace. 
 
xxxiv 
 
 And all must love the human form, 
 In Heathen, Turk, or Jew ! 
 Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell, 
 There God is dwelling 'too. 
 
 Shakspeares Venus and Adonis, Tar- 
 quin and Lucrece, and his Sonnets, occa- 
 sioned it to be said by a contemporary, 
 that, " As the soul of Euphorbus was 
 thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet 
 witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous honey- 
 tongued Shakspeare." These poems, now 
 little read, were favourite studies of Mr. 
 Blake's early days. So were Jonson's Un- 
 derwoods and Miscellanies, and he seems 
 to me to have Caught his manner, more than 
 that of Shakspeare in his trifles. The fol- 
 lowing song is a good deal in the spirit of 
 the Hue and Cry after Cupid, in the Masque 
 on Lord Haddington's marriage. It was 
 written before the age of fourteen, in the 
 heat of youthful fancy, unchastised by 
 judgment. The poet, as such, takes the 
 very strong liberty of equipping himself 
 
XXXV 
 
 with wings, and thus appropriates his me- 
 taphorical costume to his corporeal fashion 
 and seeming. The conceit is not unclassi- 
 cal ; but Pindar and the ancient lyrics ar- 
 rogated to themselves the bodies of swans 
 for their august residence. Our Gothic 
 songster is content to be encaged by Cupid ; 
 and submits, like a young lady's favourite, 
 to all the vagaries of giddy curiosity and 
 tormenting fondness. 
 
 How sweet I roamed from field to field, 
 And tasted all the summer's pride, 
 
 Till I the prince of love beheld, 
 
 Who in the sunny beams did glide! 
 
 He shewed me lilies for my hair, 
 
 And blushing roses for my brow ; 
 
 He led me through his gardens fair, 
 
 Where all his golden pleasures grow. 
 
 With sweet May dews my wings were wet, 
 And Phoebus fired my vocal rage; 
 
 He caught me in his silken net, 
 
 And shut me in his golden cage. 
 
XXXVI 
 
 He loves to sit and hear me sing, 
 
 Then, laughing, sports and plays with me ; 
 Then stretches out my golden wing, 
 
 And mocks my loss of liberty. 
 
 The playful character ascribed to the 
 prince of love, and especially his wanton 
 and fantastic action while sporting with his 
 captive, in the two last stanzas, render it 
 probable that the author had read the Hue 
 and Cry after Cupid. If so, it had made 
 its impression ; but the lines could scarcely 
 have been remembered at the time of writ- 
 ing, or the resemblance would have been 
 closer. The stanzas, to which I especially 
 allude, are these. 
 
 Wings he hath, which though ye clip, 
 He will leap from lip to lip, 
 Over liver, lights, and heart, 
 But not stay in any part ; 
 And, if chance his arrow misses, 
 He will shoot himself, in kisses. 
 
XXXV11 
 
 Idle minutes are his reign ; 
 
 Then the straggler makes his gain, 
 By presenting maids with toys, 
 And would have ye think 'em joys: 
 'Tis th' ambition of the elf, 
 To have all childish as himself. 
 
 The two following little pieces are add- 
 ed, as well by way of contrast, as for the 
 sake of their respective merits. In the first, 
 there is a simple and pastoral gaiety, which 
 the poets of a refined age have generally 
 found much more difficult of attainment, 
 than the glitter of wit, or the affectation of 
 antithesis. The second rises with the sub- 
 ject. It wears that garb of grandeur ? whicl} 
 the idea of creation communicates to a 
 mind of the higher order, Our bard, hav- 
 ing brought the topic he descants on from 
 warmer latitudes than his own, is justified 
 in adopting an imagery, of almost oriental 
 feature and complection. 
 
XXXV111 
 
 SONG, 
 
 I love the jocund dance, 
 The softly breathing song, 
 Where innocent eyes do glance, 
 
 And where lisps the maiden's tongue. 
 
 I love the laughing gale, 
 I love the echoing hill, 
 Where mirth does never fail, 
 
 And the jolly swain laughs his fill r 
 
 J love the pleasant cot, 
 I love the innocent bower, 
 Where white and brown is our lot. 
 Or fruit in the mid-day hour. 
 
 I love the oaken seat, 
 Beneath the oaken tree, 
 Where all the old villagers meet, 
 And laugh our sports to see. 
 
SSX1X 
 
 I love our neighbours all, 
 But, Kitty, I better love thee j 
 And love them I ever shall ; 
 But thou art all to me, 
 
 THE TIGER. 
 
 Tig eh, Tiger, burning bright, 
 In the forest of the night! 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Could frame thy fearful symmetry ? 
 
 In what distant deeps or skies, 
 Burnt the fire- of thine eyes ? 
 On what wings dare he aspire ? 
 What the hand dare seize the fire? 
 
 And what shoulder, and what art. 
 Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
 When thy heart began to beat. 
 What dread hand forged thy dread feet ? 
 
xl 
 
 What the hammer? What the chain? 
 In what furnace was thy brain ? 
 What the anvil ? What dread grasp 
 Pared its deadly terrors clasp ? 
 
 When the stars threw down their spears, 
 And watered heaven with their tears, 
 Did he smile his work to see? 
 Did he, who made the lamb, make thee ? 
 
 Tiger, tiger, burning bright, 
 In the forests of the night; 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ? 
 
 Besides these lyric compositions, Mr. 
 Blake has given several specimens of blank 
 verse. Here, as might be expected, his 
 personifications are bold, his thoughts ori- 
 ginal, and his style of writing altogether 
 epic in its structure. The unrestrained 
 measure, however, which should warn the 
 poet to restrain himself, has not unfrequent- 
 ly betrayed him into so wild a pursuit of 
 fancy, as to leave harmony unregarded, and 
 
xli 
 
 to pass the line prescribed by criticism to 
 the career of imagination. 
 
 But I have been leading you beside 
 our subject, into a labyrinth of poetical 
 comment, with as little method or cere- 
 mony, as if we were to have no witness of 
 our correspondence. It is time we should 
 return from the masquing regions of poetry, 
 to the business with which we set out. 
 Donne, in his Anatomy of the World, re- 
 marks the Egyptians to have acted wisely, 
 in bestowing more cost upon their tombs 
 than on their houses. This example he ad- 
 duces, to justify his own Funeral Elegies: 
 and I may perhaps be allowed to adopt it, 
 as an additional plea, should my former be 
 of no avail, for coming forward with this 
 piece of almost infantine biography. If it 
 be a custom, handed down from high an- 
 tiquity, to enshrine the breathless clay of 
 honourable men in brass or marble; — if 
 poetry and the arts jointly present their of- 
 ferings at the obsequies of princes, patriots, 
 or heroes, why may not the frailty of our 
 
xlii 
 
 hopes in private life be moralised, or the 
 sorrows of a family consecrated, by the pen 
 of the father or the friend ? The eye, which 
 looks through the magnifying tube of in- 
 terest or vanity in the public panegyric, 
 may be deceived in the private by affection. 
 In either case, the good is sure to be 
 doubled, and what is amiss to be thrown 
 at a distance. There is however little room 
 for my intellectual vision to be thus delud- 
 ed. Partiality is the standing reproach of 
 biographers : nor are we disposed to pass a 
 harsh sentence against an error on the side 
 of candour. It is natural to conceal those 
 spots in a beloved character, which we la- 
 ment ; and to extinguish private vices in a 
 radiance of public glory. But I have nei- 
 ther motive nor means for practising such 
 a deception, venial as in some cases it may 
 be. My office is of a far more humble 
 order ; yet it has soothed and rewarded me 
 in the performance, as you predicted that 
 it would. I had to relate, from plain and 
 authentic documents, the early progress of 
 
xliii 
 
 a mind, too lately come into the world, to 
 be corrupted by it. In such a mind the 
 springs of action were all single and simple ; 
 the virtues were just beginning to move and 
 act under the hand of him who contrived 
 and disposed them, without being crossed 
 as yet by contrary forces or attractions; the 
 love of knowledge moved forward to its ob- 
 ject and its end, without the mercenary bias r 
 which often draws it from its proper and 
 more honourable course in later life. I 
 hope to be found, neither to have mistaken 
 the nature of my task, nor to have made 
 too much of it. After all, it is perhaps 
 easier to perceive than to avoid the difficul- 
 ties, which lie between so modest a deline- 
 ation, as would deprive the picture of its in- 
 terest, and so high a varnish and finishing, 
 as might rather bespeak the confidence of 
 the workman, than the excellence of his 
 subject or materials. 
 
 I regret, my dear friend, that it was 
 not in my power to furnish you and my 
 readers with a portrait of a later date. We 
 
xliv 
 
 had often talked of allowing ourselves that 
 indulgence ; but we were not privy to the 
 event, which was to have communicated to 
 it an incalculable value. The engraving 
 here given, though it might well be taken 
 to represent a much older child, is from a 
 very beautiful miniature, painted by Paye, 
 when Thomas was not quite two years old. 
 He then was only beginning to speak; but 
 there was even at that early period an intel- 
 ligence in his eye, and an expression about 
 his mouth, which are, I hope, sufficiently 
 characterised in the delineation, to afford 
 no inadequate idea of his physiognomy. 
 
 There is a circumstance, to which I 
 cannot but allude, and need do no more. 
 The trick of converting confidential corre- 
 spondence, private history, or domestic 
 events, to marketable purposes, has been 
 practised of late years with little remorse, 
 and in open defiance of all prejudice on the 
 side of decency. Yet to drag the privacy 
 of a wife or a child into day-light, and ex- 
 pose to an inquisitive world scenes which 
 
xlv 
 
 were never meant to meet the public eye, 
 may be entered in the day-book of the lite- 
 rary trade, among its meanest arts. With- 
 out affecting to despise the pecuniary re- 
 ward, which the labours of the pen may 
 fairly covet and proudly enjoy, I could not 
 but feel repugnant, in the present very pe- 
 culiar case, to the idea of deriving imme- 
 diately to myself any casual advantage, 
 from setting the accomplishments of a de- 
 ceased child to sale. But there is a pur* 
 pose, which may be honourably promoted 
 by such a contingency. To make some 
 little addition to the library of the young 
 survivors, or to their other means of in- 
 struction, beyond what else it might be 
 thought expedient for a moderate fortune 
 to supply, will be an appropriation strictly 
 conformable with the turn and spirit of the 
 departed. 
 
 With so very confined an aim, I am not 
 solicitous that this production should circu- 
 late extensively; but I do wish, with more 
 anxiety than I am accustomed to experience* 
 
xlvi 
 
 that it may prove acceptable among those, 
 whom either personal knowledge or the na- 
 tural warmth of human kindness may in- 
 terest in the subject. Should it stagger the 
 sceptical, or disgust the supercilious, I shall 
 easily reconcile myself to the loss of their 
 suffrage. Neither my measure of parental 
 duty, nor my share of satisfaction in its 
 performance, are to be computed by such 
 a standard. I have waited till my passions 
 are cooled : I have exercised the best of my 
 memory and my judgment, without ven- 
 turing further on the dangerous province of 
 appreciation, than seemed to be warranted 
 by the papers before me. Yet I am still 
 aware that I write as a father; and am 
 consequently liable to indulge myself in a 
 more partial strain, than may meet the ap- 
 probation and consent of indifferent persons. 
 I have, however, done all I could to be 
 temperate : if I have occasionally forgotten 
 myself, I desire to plead before a jury of 
 fathers, and entrust my fate to their de- 
 cision. 
 
xlvii 
 
 At all events, this work, though it should 
 escape censure, can rank no higher than a 
 trifle. What apology must I make for ad- 
 dressing it to a fellow-labourer, who has 
 accomplished the serious and difficult task 
 of giving an English dress to Froissart ? I 
 think it was Gray, who denominated your 
 venerable original the Herodotus of a bar- 
 barous age. But surely that age is entitled 
 to a more respectful epithet, when France 
 could boast its Froissart, Italy its Petrarch, 
 England its WicklifFe, the father of our re- 
 formation, and Chaucer, the father of our 
 poetry. If I might slightly alter the desig- 
 nation of so complete a critic, I would pre- 
 fer calling this simple and genuine historian, 
 the Herodotus of chivalry. But by what- 
 ever title we are to greet him, the interest- 
 ing minuteness of his recital, affording a 
 strong pledge of its fidelity, the lively deline- 
 ation of manners, and the charm of unadul- 
 terated language, all conspire to place him in 
 the first rank of early writers. The public 
 begin to revolt from that spirit of philoso- 
 
xlviii 
 
 phizing on the most common occasions, in 
 consequence of which our modern historians 
 seem to be more ingenious in assigning causes 
 and motives, than assiduous to ascertain 
 facts. We are returning home to plain tales 
 and first-hand authorities; and you will 
 share the honour of pointing out the way. 
 Froissart, hitherto inaccessible to English 
 readers in general, from the obsolete garb 
 both of the French and of Lord Berners's 
 translation, may now be read in such a form, 
 as to unite the peculiar thought and turn of 
 the ancient with the intelligible phraseology 
 of modern times. With my best congratu^ 
 lations on your success, and my earnest 
 request to be forgiven for thus intruding on 
 your leisure, believe me to be, 
 
 My dear friend, 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 B. H. MALKIN. 
 
 Hackney, January 4 3 1806. 
 
FATHER'S MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 HIS CHILD. 
 
 Infinite pains have been taken by the 
 learned, in decyphering the human mind. 
 The dawn of infancy, the meridian of man- 
 hood, and the sunset of advanced age, have 
 respectively afforded suitable topics of inge- 
 nious or profound speculation. Yet the re- 
 searches of the theorist, without an appeal 
 to practice and experience, avail but little 
 to direct our projects, or to console our dis- 
 appointments. The decisions of philosophy 
 have generally proved too severe, to conci- 
 liate a voluntary acquiescence; the language 
 of its maxims has been too abstruse, to re- 
 commend itself to the general ear. When 
 we take up the task of forming the tender 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 mind, we look to the appropriate example, 
 in preference to the well-reasoned system: 
 when we lay it down in obedience to an 
 imperative decree, we more readily sympa- 
 thize with a fellow-sufferer, than reason our- 
 selves into apathy in concert with an alien 
 to our afflictions. 
 
 The great Roman dramatist has deli- 
 vered down to us a sentiment, the excel- 
 lence of which has caused it to degenerate 
 into a proverbial triteness : " I am a man ; 
 and consider nothing as foreign to my pur- 
 pose, which relates to the character and 
 condition of humanity /' The greatest pos- 
 sible latitude will readily be allowed to a 
 father, who adopts this motto, when speak- 
 ing in private of a heavy and recent loss : 
 the propriety with which he may venture 
 to interest the public in its personal appli- 
 cation, when time has wrested from him the 
 plea of a pardonable rashness, must depend 
 on the facts which he has to produce, and 
 the fidelity with which he brings them for- 
 ward. 
 
3 
 
 Narratives of a kind like the ensuing, 
 however curious in themselves, call for more 
 indulgence, than the fastidiousness of critical 
 authority is accustomed to extend, unless they 
 throw additional light on some principles, 
 either useful to the investigation of science, 
 or conducive to the interests of common 
 life. 
 
 The influence of premature talents upon 
 the stability of the corporeal frame, while it 
 must often have been a .subject of deep con- 
 templation to the philosopher, has no less 
 often made the heart of a parent to tremble, 
 and his eye to look with dismay at the pro- 
 mise, which reason as well as natural pride 
 would have hailed with joy. A very few 
 weeks after the event, which gave occasion 
 to the following pages, a gentleman, better 
 known in the field of science and politics, 
 than in the circle of domestic charities, in- 
 dulged himself in a summary of the treat- 
 ment, by means of which parental vanity is 
 led to baffle its own hopes, and to exhaust 
 the sap of life in the very springtime of its 
 
rising, while it forces the forward shoots of* 
 intellect into an unseasonable luxuriance. 
 " These prodigies of learning," said he, 
 " commence their career at three, become 
 expert linguists at four, profound philoso- 
 phers at five, read the fathers at six, and 
 die of old age at seven/' A sarcasm so 
 pointed, and apparently so applicable to 
 the circumstance in question, uttered as it 
 was face to face, had it been just, would 
 have been intolerable ; but failing as it did 
 in the essential article of truth, it only 
 served to evince the indecency and bruta- 
 lity of its author. Not that these memoirs 
 are designed for an answer to so unkind 
 and unfeeling a speech, but as a single tes- 
 timony, tending to discredit the popular 
 opinion, that children of uncommon powers 
 or attainments, as such, are almost neces- 
 sarily short-lived. Should the facts about 
 to be stated convince the reader, that an 
 instance, liable to be mistaken on common 
 report for a confirmation of the prevailing 
 idea, furnishes a pointed example in proof 
 
of its futility, their detail will not be with- 
 out its use, in enforcing general argument 
 on the one hand, or quieting individual 
 anxiety on the other. The just distinction, 
 on the whole, seems to be sufficiently ob- 
 vious. Where severe labour is exerted, to 
 produce by artificial culture an early and 
 abundant harvest, in a soil of moderate 
 fertility, the avarice of the husbandman is 
 not more pernicious to the glebe which he 
 ransacks and exhausts, than the effect of 
 such a discipline to the human frame ; on 
 the contrary, when the strength of the na- 
 tural genius is not miscalculated, but its 
 energy discreetly managed, and directed to 
 its proper objects, the experiment will be 
 found equally safe and satisfactory; the 
 project in this case is not to be considered 
 as visionary, but as entitled to anticipate a 
 degree of success, commensurate with the 
 honourable nature of the ambition. 
 
 Thomas Williams Malkin was born on 
 the thirtieth of October, 1795. It is not 
 intended to run a parallel of his infancy, 
 with that of Addison in his assumed cha- 
 
6 
 
 meter of Spectator, who " threw away his 
 rattle before he was two months old, and 
 would not make use of his coral until they 
 had taken away the bells from it." Neither 
 would it be consistent with the respect due 
 to the public, to expatiate on every trif- 
 ling instance of infantine shrewdness, and 
 thus to follow the example of an orator 
 called a Gossip in the same work, who 
 " entertains her company a whole after- 
 noon together with the wit of her little 
 boy, before he is able to speak." It is suf- 
 ficient to say, that the animal powers of 
 this child, while an infant, were acute, ac- 
 tive, and robust. Yet he was by no means 
 forward in speaking. It was not till he was 
 full two years old, that he began to talk ; 
 but he was familiar with the alphabet al- 
 most half a year sooner. He not only knew 
 the letters, when given to him as toys on 
 sets of counters, but as expressed in books, 
 to which, from seeing them constantly about 
 him, he directed his notice at a very early 
 period. Before he could articulate, when 
 a letter was named, he immediately pointed 
 
to it with his finger. From the time when 
 he was two years old, and the acquisition 
 of speech seemed to put him in possession 
 of all the instruments necessary to the at- 
 tainment of knowledge, he immediately 
 began to read, spell, and write, with a ra- 
 pidity which may scarcely be credited, but 
 by those who were witnesses of its reality. 
 His reading and writing were remarkable 
 principally for the celerity of their progress: 
 but his knowledge of orthography accrued 
 to him in a mode, sufficiently his own to 
 evince, that he was not dependent on the 
 ordinary mechanical process, by which it 
 is rendered so burdensome to the infancy 
 of the retentive faculties, without exercising 
 the ear or the understanding, He did not 
 commit his words to memory from a spelling- 
 book, but caught the elements of which 
 they were compounded, by listening to their 
 articulate pronunciation. Thus, by consult- 
 ing the sound, and correcting himself, where 
 that might have misled him, according to 
 the analogy of new cases with the known 
 
8 
 
 custom of the old ones, he arrived by de- 
 grees at an almost uniform exactness ; so 
 that for some time this exercise of his dis- 
 criminative powers was among the most 
 amusing of his employments. 
 
 So early as before he was three years old, 
 he had taught himself to make letters, first 
 in imitation of printed books, and after- 
 wards of hand-writing ; for it is to be recol- 
 lected, that he was left to himself, to chalk 
 out his own pursuits of this nature. It was 
 thought expedient to limit the province of 
 instruction to those occasional assistances, 
 for which the intervention of casual errors 
 and difficulties may well be imagined to 
 have furnished frequent opportunity. His 
 parents would indeed have considered the 
 attempt to impose on a child of his tender 
 years, such tasks as he voluntarily assumed, 
 not merely a hopeless, but a presumptuous 
 and cruel effort. At the same time, it would 
 have been an instance either of perverseness 
 or timidity, to have checked his ardour after 
 knowledge, since it cost his mind no pain- 
 
9 
 
 ful exertion, neither diminishing his incli- 
 nation for active sports, nor trenching upon 
 the puerile tenor of his natural habits. 
 
 On the thirtieth of October, 1798, the 
 day on which he attained the age of three 
 years, he wrote a little letter to his mother 
 with a pencil. This was the first occasion 
 of his putting words together in writing. As 
 it now lies before me, I find the forms of 
 the letters to be in general accurate and 
 well-shaped, though their sizes are dispro- 
 portioned, and the lines, though few, ex- 
 tremely uneven. At the bottom he has 
 written the Arabian numerals in succession, 
 as far as the number 20. There is nothing 
 in this letter to call for its insertion ; but I 
 have received another from a lady, which 
 he wrote to her only two months afterwards. 
 This is also in pencil, written much better, 
 and sufficiently strait. 
 
10 
 
 MY DEAR MISS 
 
 Thomas has been reading Tit 
 for Tat in the Evenings at Home, and 
 Thomas has laughed at " The fellow tried, 
 and tried, and tried/' I wish you would 
 come to see Tom. 
 
 T.W.M. 
 
 December 1798. 
 
 The foregoing reference to a very plea- 
 sant tale in verse, in the Evenings at Home, 
 leads me to observe, that he was at this 
 early age peculiarly susceptible of humour- 
 ous impressions, and that his quickness in 
 apprehending the ridiculous increased with 
 the expansion of his other powers. His 
 laugh was so hearty, natural, and arch, 
 that it was next to impossible not to join in 
 it; while his mirth was occasioned alter- 
 nately by subjects of a childish, or more 
 rational complection. 
 
 The following letters have been furnish- 
 ed from another quarter, and shew how ra- 
 
11 
 
 pidly he was gaining ground in facility of 
 expression. 
 
 MY DEAR COUSIN S — M , 
 
 I have a new map. Thomas 
 can put it together — and when Mama takes 
 some counties out, Tom can tell what they 
 all are. I think you are very beautiful. I 
 wish you would come and teach Tom to 
 read Greek. Benjamin has got some more 
 double teeth coming. Tom gives him 
 all his playthings, and makes him very 
 happy. 
 
 T.W.MALKIN. 
 
 Jan. 18, 1799- 
 
 It may seem laughable to find a child 
 of a little more than three years old giving 
 his opinion on the subject of beauty ; but 
 he was always particularly struck by it, and 
 could describe with precision the style of 
 
12 
 
 features which gratified his eye. His taste 
 almost uniformly coincided with that of 
 more experienced judges. He was, how- 
 ever, misinformed as to the ability of the 
 young lady in question to teach him Greek; 
 an attainment of little use to females, who 
 do well to supply the want of it by polite 
 accomplishments and modern languages. 
 A short time after he thus addressed his 
 young correspondent again. 
 
 MY DEAR COUSIN S — M — , 
 
 I thank you for your letter. 
 I have read it often enough. My love to 
 you. Maps are for setting up. Papa was 
 so good as to bring Tom maps. Benjamin 
 hasn't lived long enough in the world to 
 know his letters. When he is big like Tom, 
 then Mama will buy him a box of letters. 
 He will then run and say, Is this A? 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
 April 4, 1799. 
 
13 
 
 At this time, he could read, without 
 hesitation, any English book. He could 
 now spell any words, of whatever length 
 they might be, or however discordant the 
 orthography from the pronunciation. He 
 knew the Greek alphabet, and could read 
 most Greek words, not exceeding four syl- 
 lables. Shortly after this he amused him- 
 self with writing the Greek character, and 
 frequently adopted it instead of his own in 
 his little letters to his mother. He often 
 expressed a very earnest desire of learning 
 the language: but it was judged to be the 
 part of needful caution in this instance, to 
 repress in some degree the aspiring progress 
 of his ambition. 
 
 On the few birth-days, at which it was 
 his lot to arrive, it became a custom with 
 him to write a letter, at the particular re- 
 quest of his parents. His other epistolary 
 or fanciful compositions were preserved or 
 dispersed, as accident might determine; 
 but these periodical accounts of himself 
 were carefully laid by, for the purpose of 
 
14 
 
 marking the gradual expansion of his intel- 
 lect, and recording the nature as well as 
 multiplicity of his pursuits. The subjoined 
 letters will furnish, in his own words, the 
 best evidence of his improvement within the 
 space of one twelvemonth, from the time 
 when he first began to write. 
 
 MY DEAREST MOTHER, 
 
 I was four years old yesterday. 
 I have got several new books; Mrs. Trim- 
 mer's English Description ; Mental Im- 
 provement, by Mrs. Priscilla Wakefield ; and 
 a Latin Grammar, and English Prints. I 
 think I have got a great many besides the 
 old ones that I had before. Every day I 
 lay up all my Maps, and Chronological 
 Tables. My Maps and Tables are all dis- 
 sected. I know you love me very much, 
 when I am a good boy, and I hope I shall 
 be always a good boy. Benjamin knows 
 all his letters, except one or two, and I 
 
15 
 
 hope he will know how to read soon. Papa 
 is going to teach me to learn Latin on Fri- 
 day. That will be to-morrow. 
 
 T, W. MALKIN. 
 
 October 31, 1799- 
 
 Extract from a Letter, dated Jan. 1800. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 In the Illustrious Heads that I have 
 seen, there was Catherine Howard, not Cathe- 
 rine Parr, and those were all queens of King 
 Henry the Eighth; and Lady Jane Sey- 
 mour, and Catherine of Arragon, and Eli- 
 zabeth Plantagenet. But she was queen of 
 Henry the Seventh, and daughter of Ed- 
 ward the Fourth. I saw Oliver Cromwell, 
 too, and William Shakespeare, and Sir Isaac 
 Newton. He was a very good man. In 
 the third volume of my Evenings at Home, 
 
16 
 
 I read about him being led to some of his 
 discoveries by seeing an apple fall from a 
 tree. And that was very pretty. ... I never 
 was drunk, nor I should'nt like to be in that 
 shocking way a bit. ... To be about to be ; 
 > — I hardly know whether that is any sense 
 or not. ... As I know I am a good boy, I 
 believe I shall be better still. 
 
 His letter on the recurrence of his next 
 birth-day, with an extract or two from an- 
 other written some little time before, may 
 serve to shew how far the sphere of his ob- 
 servation was enlarged, and his style alter- 
 ed. Two other letters of nearly the same 
 period, with some additional particulars sub- 
 joined, will illustrate the mode and course of 
 his education. 
 
17 
 
 Hackney, October 30, 1800^ 
 
 is the year at this time. 
 
 MY DEAR CHARLOTTE, 
 
 I shall give you a reason why I 
 wrote Charlotte instead of Mother to you ; 
 and the reason is, because I thought it would 
 be prettier. I also think, that I shall be 
 very glad when I am six years old. I am 
 five now, and to-morrow I shall begin to go 
 on for six. In my walk to-day, 1 saw some 
 people clipping a tree: and I saw a man, 
 killing a poor pig, which you told me that 
 one might well squeak, if a man was to kill 
 it. I also think, that I shall learn a great, 
 great deal of Latin from my Latin Dic- 
 tionary. I shall now, when I do my ex- 
 ercise, do it out of my Latin Dictionary, 
 and I shall have my Exempla Minora, to 
 look out some words in it. And I shall 
 have my Latin Grammar to turn to where 
 I want in. Also, I think my Pocket-Book, 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 is a very nice thing, especially: for in it, 
 there is a tweasers, bodkin, scissars, and 
 knife to cut with, pencil to write memo- 
 randums with upon the asses skin, and there 
 is a clasp to it on the outside to open and 
 shut the pocket-book with. . . . Dearest Mo- 
 ther, as you are not well, I will do what 
 you like me to do, to make you better. 
 Mother, I shall read to you to-day, and to- 
 day do some exercise. After I have look'd 
 a little in my Latin Dictionary, which I use 
 in my exercise, I find the words that I want 
 to find in it. ... I do not find the great dic- 
 tionary too unwieldy for me; but I think I 
 can manage it very well. I think I will 
 not tell you any Latin words. At Lea- 
 Bridge I have so very fine a view of Essex! 
 The months of the year are January, Fe- 
 bruary, March, April, May, June, July, 
 August, September, October, November, 
 and December. Civilized nations, in Ja- 
 nuary, they in general agree to begin rec- 
 koning the new year from the first of that 
 month. — Water is, when frozen, expanded; 
 
19 
 
 that is, takes up more room than before. 
 Ice is lighter than water, and swims upon 
 it. I am quite sure never to spoil the gar- 
 den, that the mower has been making tidy, 
 again. My Latin Dictionary is very useful 
 to me, so is my stool. The trees now are 
 rotten. I have seen two trees that were 
 rotten all to the top; one was a willow-tree; 
 but I c|lo not know what sort the other was. 
 The Calendar of Nature is very useful to 
 me ; ahd I think it was very good in Dr. 
 Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld to write these em- 
 ploying books for little boys instead of grown 
 people. The Index of the English Exercise 
 book does not apply to those I am in, but 
 the Dictionary. 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
20 
 
 Extract from a Letter dated Oct. 10, 1800. 
 
 In my Mental Improvement, 1 
 have read that the wood of the beech-tree 
 is useful to the turner for dishes, trays, &c. 
 and that the upholsterer forms it into stools, 
 &c. and I have not forgotten that yet. I 
 read that in the second volume. My father 
 has told me, that the Romans used to oil 
 their bodies, and make them active, and I 
 have not forgotten that yet, neither. In the 
 Latin language, thousands more are of the 
 feminine gender, than I know. Some are 
 masculine, some neuter. I know a good 
 deal of geography, and I shall be very glad, 
 too, when I know a great deal more ; for 
 geography, I find, is a very clever thing for 
 me to know. I know a deal of Latin. I 
 think I know a little French, but no Welch. 
 I know no Greek, neither. God bless you, 
 my dearest mother and father, and I hope 
 
21 
 
 you may see many happy days, I think 
 that in the tenth volume of those * books, 
 the figures are very fine of Hygia, Venus, 
 Apollo, Minerva, &c. and other statues. 
 I hope I shall be a clever man. 
 
 The following letter was probably writ- 
 ten with the Map of Europe before him, 
 and is only inserted with a view of exhibit- 
 ing his diligence in the prosecution of his 
 geographical studies. The list of Spanish 
 commodities must evidently have been ei- 
 ther transcribed or recollected from some of 
 his books. 
 
 Hackney, October 10, 1800. 
 MY DEAREST UNCLE, 
 
 In my other letter to you, I did 
 not give you enough of instruction, where 
 rivers are ; so I will give you a little more. 
 
 * Museum Florentinum. 
 
22 
 
 The Oka is in Russia, the Wolga in Russia, 
 the Unza in Russia, the Peza in Russia, the 
 Choper in Russia, the Usnema in Russia, 
 the Kama in Kasan, which is a part of 
 Russia, the Tornea in Sweden, the Pithea 
 in Sweden, the Ebro in Spain, the Guadal- 
 quivir in Spain, the Tajo in Spain, the 
 Onega in Russia, the Rhone in France, the 
 Garonne in France, the Loire in France, 
 the Seine in France, the Lea a small river 
 in England, the Po in Italy, the Teyss in 
 Hungary, the Danube waters Germany, 
 Turkey in Europe, and Hungary, the Pri- 
 niez in Poland, the Berezjno in Poland, the 
 Elbe is in Germany, the Weser in Germany, 
 the Oder in Germany, the Samara in Tar- 
 tary, that is not Chinese Tartary, the Dni- 
 eper in that same Tartary and Poland, the 
 Kuban in Circassia, the Vistula in Poland 
 and Russia, the Maes in the United Pro- 
 vinces, and the Dnieper in Little Tartary 
 and Poland and Lithuania. From Spain, 
 we get wines, figs, several drugs, cochineal, 
 balsam of Peru, borax, pistol-barrels, ver- 
 
23 
 
 million, sword-blades, indigo, raw silk, oil, 
 pomegranates, almonds, raisins, olives, ches- 
 nuts, lemons, snuff, hams, iron, saltpetre, 
 fine wool, oranges, sarsaparilla, cocoa-nuts, 
 citrons, and Spanish pepper. You have a 
 letter that is not so long; in it I tell you 
 positively, the river Minho is in Spain. 
 
 T, W. MALKIN, 
 
 Hackney, Monday, Dec. 1, 1SQO. 
 MY DEAR AUNT , 
 
 I wanted very much to come 
 and see you, but when I was a little boy, I 
 went ; however, it is such a long time after, 
 that I do not remember it, J am learning 
 Latin, and I know a good deal of it. I 
 think I can read Greek* a little too, and 
 my Father thought I got on a little with 
 French, . only I have left it off I have a 
 
 * The Greek character only. 
 
24 
 
 great Latin Dictionary, I think I learn a 
 great deal from it. I too have an English 
 exercise book, and I do Latin exercises 
 from it. You know, there is corn in Au- 
 gust, In July, the fruits which are ripe, 
 are very cooling and refreshing; such as 
 cherries, currants, strawberries, raspberries, 
 and goosberries. An oak is a very hand- 
 some tree. We have a book, and it is Ro- 
 bert Burns's Poems, which I am very fond 
 of; however, it is mostly of the Scottish 
 kind, which I do not understand : but also, 
 there is a glossary at the end, and it teaches 
 me any word which I do not know. There 
 is about the two dogs in it ; and about John 
 Barleycorn; and a great many other things 
 which I do not know. Water is expanded, 
 when frozen, January is, in this part of 
 the world, the coldest month: for, you 
 know, there is frost and snow in that month; 
 and hoar-frost is dew, or mist frozen. Then 
 the wild quadrupeds too are driven from 
 their accustomed remote haunts. The 
 valley swells to a shining mountain. The 
 
25 
 
 snow-drop, and crocus, peep above the 
 ground in February. In March, too, it is 
 very cold. But when will you come and 
 see me ? I wonder you do not ; and should 
 be very glad if you would. There is such 
 an animal as an antelope, and hippopota- 
 mus, and Giraffe, and Tapiir. 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
 At this time, he had advanced so far in 
 Latin, as to write an exercise every day 
 with a considerable degree of accuracy. It 
 seemed to be a leading object of his am- 
 bition, to make himself master of the dead 
 languages. To this end, it was his constant 
 practice, to make enquiries of a description, 
 far removed from that mechanical routine 
 of study, contentedly paced over by many 
 scholars of a more mature age. Thus was 
 his memory not only furnished, but his com- 
 prehension enlarged. By these means, he 
 
26 
 
 gained a clear insight into language, its 
 structure and its progress. The questions 
 he was now in the habit of putting, were 
 often such, as would have occurred to few 
 boys, who had doubled his years. His evi- 
 dent pleasure, when they were satisfactorily 
 resolved, proved his curiosity not to have 
 been more alive to the difficulty, than his 
 understanding to the solution. He was 
 capable of dieting his mind, with more than 
 ordinary relish and perseverance, on what 
 is generally considered as the dry and husky 
 food of elementary knowledge. It was with 
 the utmost avidity, that he looked for my 
 assistance, in comparing the idiom and con- 
 struction of the examples in the Latin syn- 
 tax used at Eton, with the idiom and con- 
 struction of his own and the French lan- 
 guages. Indeed, his acuteness in tracing 
 the etymology, and reducing to their ele- 
 ments the component parts of words, pur- 
 suing them through English and French, 
 and enquiring after their forms in Greek and 
 Italian, ground as yet untouched by him, 
 
27 
 
 evinces a mind more than commonly fitted 
 for philological pursuits. 
 
 Some sentences of a paper, referring to 
 the present date, may be considered as wor- 
 thy of insertion, with a view to illustrate his 
 facility in applying the general principles of 
 language, as well as his capacity for com- 
 prehending them. 
 
 One evening in November, 1800, as the 
 family were sitting at their usual employ- 
 ments, Thomas amused himself by looking 
 over a French Dictionary, and endeavour- 
 ing to find out words, to be fitted into some- 
 thing as much like sense, as might be prac- 
 ticable for so inexperienced a workman* 
 At this time he knew little of French ; from 
 the Latin conjugations however and declen- 
 sions, he understood the use of a French 
 grammar lying by his side. With this help 
 therefore, he attempted to put the nouns 
 and verbs, as he found them, into the case, 
 number, person, and tense, according to 
 his apprehension most consonant with what 
 he designed to express. He had never re- 
 
28 
 
 ceived any methodical instruction in French, 
 but had been in the habit of examining with 
 some diligence the contents of the dictionary 
 and grammar. Yet had he never till now 
 given any reason to suppose, that he could 
 turn his little knowledge to so ready an ac- 
 count. Laborious as this mode of compo- 
 sition may appear to have been, he carried 
 it on to a considerable length. The begin- 
 ning, written in Roman characters, is a mere 
 chaos of words, with but a ray of meaning 
 now and then. As he proceeded, in the 
 course of a single evening, he improved so 
 rapidly in his new art, that some of the pe- 
 riods exhibit an attempt not far short of re- 
 gular and grammatical construction. The 
 following are among the most intelligible 
 sentences. 
 
 Je vois, que vous mouriez bientot. Que 
 je mourusse de poison, je le mangerai. 
 
 Ablution donne nous grand amusement. 
 
 D'Abord, nous vimes quelque chose qui 
 etoit tres curieux. Je pensai, le fut (pro- 
 bably meant for qu'il fut) Moulin-a-vent. 
 
29 
 
 Secondment, nous vimes un maison ; troi- 
 siemement, nous vimes un eglise; et qua- 
 triemement, nous vimes un homme et fem- 
 me promenant ensemble. 
 
 Maintenant (apparently used instead of 
 quand) nous sommes mort, nous serons mis 
 dans tombeau. 
 . Un homme, quand il est vivant, il coure. 
 
 A Noel, nous serons pris jusqu' en ciel. 
 
 It has already been observed, that for a 
 long time he had read English with perfect 
 fluency. I know not, whether I shall incur 
 the suspicion of hyperbole, by adding, that 
 he now understood it with critical precision. 
 Neither was his attention confined to words. 
 He never passed over any passage, the style 
 or subject of which might happen to be ob- 
 scure or difficult, without an attentive en- 
 quiry into the nature of the subject dis- 
 cussed, as well as the grammatical con- 
 struction. Thus he spared no pains, either 
 to satisfy his doubts, or enlighten and in- 
 vigorate his conceptions. In the few vo- 
 lumes, which were set aside as exclusively 
 
30 
 
 his own, he seldom suffered even errors of 
 the press, so trifling as those of punctuation, 
 to . pass without being marked by a pencil 
 he kept for the purpose. His books en- 
 gaged his earliest attention in the morning ; 
 and it was rarely that the allurements of the 
 breakfast-table could prevail with him to 
 leave unfinished a story in which he was 
 interested, or a lesson in which he was not 
 perfect. 
 
 It may be necessary, after these state- 
 ments, to repeat the remark, that notwith- 
 standing these studious inclinations and ha- 
 bits, he was still a child of a manly cor- 
 poreal structure, of buoyant spirits, with a 
 degree of activity sufficiently suited to his 
 years. When engaged in play, he was as 
 much a child as other children ; and derived 
 as much pleasure from his diversions, as if 
 his thoughts had never expatiated beyond 
 them. But as soon as he was weary of his 
 sports, he generally returned, with increased 
 avidity, to his books, his maps, or his pen- 
 cil. Lounging was altogether excluded from 
 
31 
 
 the list of his pleasures ; neither were his 
 mind or body assailable by the hostile power 
 of indolence, because he knew it to be the 
 bane of all improvement. 
 
 He had acquired a most happy art in 
 copying maps, with a neatness and accu- 
 racy, an idea of which I have no means of 
 conveying to the reader. Were one of his 
 performances in this line put into the hands 
 of an engraver, it would contract a stiffness, 
 destructive of its identity. The specimens 
 in my possession are curious and beautiful. 
 Those which he has reduced by his eye, are 
 equally accurate with what are imitated in 
 the size of the original. 
 
 With respect to the productions of his 
 pencil, he had now, for a considerable time, 
 made drawing a principal source of enter- 
 tainment. In the desultory pursuit of it, 
 without any professional assistance, he had 
 acquired no common facility of execution, 
 and derived from nature a happy talent of 
 -original invention. It would indeed be the 
 height of absurdity, to claim the merit of 
 
m 
 
 precision for his best specimens. His worst 
 however were not devoid of something like 
 ingenuity of design. He has produced co- 
 pies from some of Raphael's heads, so much 
 in unison with the style and sentiment of 
 the originals, as induced my late excellent 
 and ingenious friend Mr. Banks to predict, 
 that if he were to pursue the arts as a profes- 
 sion, he would one day rank among the more 
 distinguished of their votaries. The whole 
 length of Paul preaching at Athens, from 
 the Cartoons, copied on a reduced scale, in 
 a very few lines, proved that he had suffi- 
 cient feeling to trace his master through the 
 clumsy disguise of Dorigny. 
 
 But he had a remarkable habit of in- 
 venting little landscapes ; for which purpose 
 he was accustomed to cut every piece of 
 waste paper within his reach, into squares of 
 the size represented in the annexed plate. 
 These he filled with temples, bridges, trees, 
 broken ground, or any other fanciful and 
 picturesque materials, which suggested 
 themselves to his imagination. They are 
 
'■ 
 
 
 -; *** >■> < j zg* j ■ 
 
 
 r^i 
 
 ^Pzr^h,, — yryn... : 
 
 n 
 
35 
 
 traced faithfully and exactly from the ori* 
 ginals ; so that they require little comment. 
 There is a decisive idea attached to each of 
 them: the buildings are placed firm upon 
 the ground ; and there is a general taste in 
 the disposition, and variety in the designs, 
 the result of a mind gifted with just feeling, 
 and fertile resources. His performances of 
 this kind were so numerous, that these plates 
 might have been multiplied to a consider- 
 able number; but the six here selected were 
 thought sufficient for a specimen of his ta- 
 lent in composition* 
 
 Yet, as my panegyric on such a subject 
 can carry with it no recommendation, I sub- 
 join the testimony of Mr. Blake to this in- 
 stance of peculiar ingenuity, who has given 
 me his opinion of these various performances 
 in the following terms. 
 
 " They are all firm, determinate outline, 
 or identical form. Had the hand which 
 executed these little ideas been that of a 
 plagiary, who works only from the memory, 
 we should have seen blots, called masses; 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 blots without form, and therefore without 
 meaning. These blots of light and dark, 
 as being the result of labour, are always 
 clumsy and indefinite; the effect of rub- 
 bing out and putting in, like the progress 
 of a blind man, or of one in the dark, who 
 feels his way, but does not see it. These 
 are not so. Even the copy from Raphael's 
 Cartoon of St. Paul preaching, is a firm, 
 determinate outline, struck at once, as Pro- 
 togenes struck his line, when he meant to 
 make himself known to Apelles. The map 
 of Allestone has the same character of the 
 firm and determinate. All his efforts prove 
 this little boy to have had that greatest of 
 all blessings, a strong imagination, a clear 
 idea, and a determinate vision of things in 
 his own mind." 
 
 I understand that I have been censured for 
 extravagance, in consequence of having said 
 in another place ; " the character of his mind 
 maybe comprised in these few words. He re- 
 membered whatever he had once known, and 
 could do whatever he had once seen done." 
 
35 
 
 I shall not however be deterred from adding 
 here, that he could imitate whatever lay 
 before him. Several examples are now 
 spread upon my table, where he has copied 
 the most dissimilar hand-writing on scraps 
 of paper, or covers of letters, with the ex- 
 actness of a fac-simile. His own hand con- 
 tinually varied, and was altogether of a 
 different character from that of a child. He 
 never had any writing-master; nor indeed 
 any instruction, but what he procured at 
 home. He was however for the most part 
 a tutor to himself; requiring neither excite- 
 ment nor coercion to regulate his habits and 
 employments. 
 
 Having transcribed the letters of his pre- 
 ceding birth-days, I shall conclude the short 
 series with that written on his last, though 
 several others may perhaps be found to be 
 more interesting, some of which will be se- 
 lected in the sequel. It may be necessary 
 to explain, that on this occasion, the busi- 
 ness of the University required my attend- 
 
36 
 
 ance at Cambridge, whither the following 
 letter was addressed. 
 
 Hackney,, October 30, 1801. 
 MY DEAREST MOTHER, 
 
 Next time you go to Cambridge, 
 if you will allow it, I should be very glad 
 to accompany you there, for the sake of 
 having a ride. I hope before you return, 
 you will be so good as to write me a letter 
 in answer to this, and I shall be most happy 
 to receive it. As you one day said you 
 hoped I would hear Benjamin read and 
 spell to me, I promise to do it some times 
 when I have leisure to hear him, and when 
 he is in a humour for it: and I shall teach 
 him as near as I can to the manner in which 
 you do. I am in great hopes you will think 
 well of this letter, for I am sure I do all 
 that I can to put it into your power to do 
 
37 
 
 so. I hope you will trust that the great and 
 good God will make us both better still, 
 though I assure you I have this morning 
 had very serious thoughts of being much 
 better now I am six. However, I still 
 think there is much room for improvement 
 in us both, especially me, if God spares 
 our lives, that we improve in them still 
 more. I hope, that you think all this about 
 improvement is a very good subject. Till 
 you return, my intention is to do as near as 
 it is in my power to what I imagine you 
 would like. I trust Cambridge is a healthy 
 place for you and my Father; and when 
 you write to me, I should hope you will 
 tell me in what state of health you are, for 
 I should rejoice most amazingly at knowing 
 how you was. At first you told me you 
 would excuse the drawing, and every thing 
 of that sort; but I went to business on my 
 birth-day, and did just the drawing. When 
 you are from home, it is always a pleasure 
 to me to think that you are in good health, 
 or that you have met with no misfortune in 
 
38 
 
 any way, at least. . . . Ben, I trust, will read 
 and spell to me well; for you know, the 
 better he does it, the more improvement he 
 will gain by it, and the more useful it will 
 make him. He seems to me to be a very 
 good little boy, altogether, while you are 
 gone 
 
 I hope you will believe me 
 
 Your most affectionate son, 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
 As a parent, deeply interested in the 
 object of my affection, I cannot but regret 
 that a more numerous collection of anec- 
 dotes has not been made, relating to things 
 said and done by this uncommon boy. Yet, 
 though all might have been insufficient to 
 gorge the appetite of individual craving, 
 what is here committed to the press may 
 
39 
 
 not improbably be thought to have over- 
 charged the subject, as far as general curi- 
 osity is concerned. To myself I reconcile 
 what now appears carelessness in the pre- 
 servation of these fragments, by considering 
 that the event, which has made the pos- 
 session of such memorials peculiarly de- 
 sireable, was little to be expected. As an 
 excuse for presenting them thus copiously 
 at the fastidious tribunal of public criticism, 
 I may, not without due allowance, plead, 
 that such registers of early proficiency are 
 both useful and interesting. Those who 
 have the rising generation under their eye, 
 whether as parents or preceptors, may gather 
 many a significant warning from the suc- 
 cesses or failure of their predecessors. 
 While we trace the actual progress of an 
 almost infantine mind, through knowledge 
 up to virtue, we at once ascertain an im- 
 portant fact. Wherever the physical and 
 intellectual powers are endued with suitable 
 vigour, it is within the province of educa- 
 tion to impart an early taste for elegant and 
 
40 
 
 rational pursuits ; it is within the latitude of 
 a discriminating judgment, to abridge the 
 mental imbecility of childhood, without 
 quenching the natural and salutary fire of 
 the animal spirits. To aim at those frivo- 
 lous accomplishments of declamation and 
 histrionic exhibition, which may manufac- 
 ture pertness in a boy, but will never send 
 a man into the world, is the reproach and 
 folly of our present times. Not for such 
 attainments do I contend ; but for the time- 
 ly cultivation of useful and substantial 
 knowledge, stripped of its wilder, and as we 
 may call them, forest shoots, by the urbanity 
 and good temper of those who superintend 
 its growth. Without good temper and for- 
 bearance, (if it be allowable to employ a 
 second metaphor on one subject) every other 
 virtue, belonging to the domestic character, 
 is cast into shadow. The colouring of sin- 
 cerity, without such a mellowing infusion, 
 darkens into a ferocious misanthropy; the 
 parent and teacher degenerates into the pe- 
 dagogue; the friend is lost in the stern mo- 
 
41 
 
 nitor, and the careful steward of the future 
 is forgotten in the rigid controller of all 
 present indulgences. 
 
 The acquisitions of this child have hi- 
 therto been the theme of these memoirs. 
 But they, pleasing as the topic may be, must 
 be kept down in a due subserviency to a 
 higher object. Short indeed was the time 
 that glided by, without unfolding some new 
 beauty of his character and disposition. 
 The narrative would be enlivened, if more 
 story were to be thrown into it : but he had 
 contracted so constant a habit of commit- 
 ting his thoughts to paper, that it seemed 
 sufficient at the moment to preserve what 
 he had written, without recording what he 
 said. I shall therefore, without reference 
 to times or seasons, select such of his letters 
 and other compositions, as mark either the 
 peculiar bent of his mind or versatility of 
 his talents. They will be accompanied with 
 such occasional explanations, as may be 
 necessary to render them intelligible, and 
 then left to find their own level. It is hoped 
 
42 
 
 they will carry with them internal evidence, 
 that they have not been contaminated by 
 any attempt at artificial heightening, or by 
 the vain conceit of piecing out an imperfect 
 sentiment from confused ideas and half- 
 formed sentences. I may have erred on the 
 side of partiality; but it has been my sin- 
 cere wish, to draw a portrait from the life, 
 and to take nature for my standard, neither 
 working up the tone into a meretricious 
 glare, nor enlarging the dimensions of the 
 design. 
 
 Of all the features I have to delineate, 
 there is none so striking, as a pious tendency 
 of thought, perhaps unexampled at his early 
 period of life. The following pages will 
 bear so frequent testimony to the truth of 
 this, that it will be unnecessary to enlarge 
 upon it here. It may not however be im- 
 pertinent to observe, upon a part of his his- 
 tory, open to suspicion with a certain class of 
 readers, that this train of reflection accrued 
 to him principally from his own internal 
 feelings. It would have been profane in- 
 
4| 
 
 deed to have discouraged it ; but we were 
 far enough removed from the atmosphere of 
 fanaticism. Never therefore would it have 
 entered into our system, to have forced the 
 premature consideration of mystical or 
 speculative theology upon a tender mind, 
 against the current of nature; neither should 
 we have run so directly counter to the dic- 
 tates of common sense, as to have incurred 
 the danger of disqualifying him for the pre- 
 sent world, by an unseasonable preparation 
 for the future. His piety, like the melan- 
 choly of Jaques, was his own. It was ani- 
 mated by a natural warmth, but had no 
 fuel applied from without, to kindle it into 
 a self-destroying blaze. Nearly the whole 
 of the following letter exhibits so forcibly 
 his sentiments on this head, that I shall in- 
 sert it at length. 
 
44 
 
 Grove Place, Hackney, Sunday Evening, 
 Jan. 22, 1802. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 My anxiety of writing to you 
 has proved the action quite necessary, having 
 a good deal to say about the little child 
 which the incomprehensible Almighty has, 
 with all his wonderful works, given you 
 reason to know will come. I certainly think 
 it exactly true that it will come, by your 
 saying so; though I should not have, of 
 course, believed it so stedfastly, if you 
 had only thought so : but now I will return 
 to the subject, not of your thinking that it 
 will come, but of the infant itself. 
 
 What use can it be of either to you or 
 me, if I do not love it ? But I shall love it 
 as much, or more than I did Benjamin 
 when he first came, if I am not too much 
 concerned about any thing, or especially 
 Allestone, to think of it at all, which I dare 
 
45 
 
 say, I shall not be. I should love it which- 
 ever sex it was of; but, as I told Miss , 
 
 in my last letter which I wrote to her, I 
 should love a sister rather the best, as you 
 know I have a brother already. 
 
 Indeed I find that in another case this 
 address to you is necessary, for in it I would 
 tell you many subjects which I wish to hide 
 from any other person but yourself. I dare 
 say the lesson that my brother and you read, 
 and also you alone, will in the end prove 
 both very entertaining and instructive, and 
 will cause me to make very good resolu- 
 tions. I promise from henceforth to read 
 and study a good deal in that holy book, 
 for both entertainment and instruction; and 
 also make a constant, and perhaps ever- 
 lasting resolution, of attempting to receive 
 instruction from the Bible. Henceforward 
 this resolution will for a long time get the 
 better of me, and perhaps, as I also may 
 say, for all my life. I wish it may be long, 
 hardly at all for the sake of fortune, being 
 so much less important than piety and good- 
 
46 
 
 ness, and as God cares so much more about 
 it, that I may have time to fulfil my reso- 
 lution, which I dare say is in yours, and I 
 am sure in our heavenly Father s opinion, 
 good. But I will not get into that conceit- 
 ed way of thinking my own promises good : 
 I had much rather have a better subject, as 
 you say. I think myself very happily cir- 
 cumstanced to have such a good mother 
 and father. I think I could not have a bet- 
 ter one. I also confess that I ought to think 
 myself in the same happy state as I do. 
 God grant that your life be long, that you 
 may keep your disposition towards us and 
 the next little child you havel In trouble I 
 intend to attempt in future to console my- 
 self if I can with the thoughts of your ten- 
 der disposition towards us; if, as I have 
 great confidence it will, it lasts for ever. I 
 shall be very happy to receive your positive 
 answer; but I mention it late, because I 
 have many other better subjects to tell you 
 of: I will speak of one of them now. — If I 
 fulfil the former resolution, which I shall 
 
47 
 
 certainly do, if I keep it till I grow up, and 
 do not leave it off then, I dare say I shall 
 find it all ends in happiness : and then I 
 should perhaps reflect how much more un- 
 fortunate it would be, if all my infantine 
 time had been spent in vice. I from hence- 
 forth also promise to do your will always 
 (in which subject the letter will terminate) — 
 in every thing: and to obey the Almighty's 
 will the same. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Mother, 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
 As they are connected with that part of 
 his character, at present under contempla- 
 tion^ and at the same time furnish a proof 
 of his imitative powers, the following psalm 
 and prayer are submitted to the attention of 
 
48 
 
 the reader. The prosaic measure of Stern- 
 hold and Hopkins is made to appear still 
 more limping by the absence of rhyme ; but 
 the decent and solemn march of the Col- 
 lects in the Book of Common Prayer is 
 not unsuccessfully represented, while the 
 choice of words harmonizes duly with the 
 style of those venerable compositions. The 
 date is May 20, 1802. 
 
 PSALM CII. 
 
 I call to the Lord, 
 
 When I am in pain, 
 I cry to him involved in woe, 
 
 He list'neth to me. 
 
 Let man praise the Lord, 
 
 That weak worthless thing; 
 With cymbal, flute, let him applaud, • 
 
 And sing to my God. 
 
 The Lord will be praised, 
 
 And also 'tis right, 
 T' obey his will, and t' exalt him. 
 
 For he'll have it done. 
 
49 
 
 A PRAYER. 
 
 We humbly beseech thee, most gracious 
 God, to keep us from all sin; enable us to 
 obey thy will ; endow us with all good qua- 
 lities, and keep us from all bad ones; to 
 preserve us from danger, and repay us duly 
 as we deserve. And all this to enable thee, 
 thy dear Son, and the Holy Ghost, to think 
 it proper to esteem us in a proper quantity; 
 (not fearing that it will be in a proper, as I 
 know thou art always a righteous judge) 
 and to go on doing so for ever and ever* 
 Amen. 
 
 Addison, in one of his papers, written 
 to recommend the cultivation and improve- 
 ment of our church-music, speaks in the 
 following terms of the elegancies derived to 
 our language from the infusion of Hebra- 
 
 p. 
 
50 
 
 isms, and the adoption of the poetical and 
 pious phraseology in the inspired authors. 
 
 " There is something so pathetic in this 
 kind of diction, that it often sets the mind 
 in a flame, and makes our hearts burn with- 
 in us. How cold and dead does a prayer 
 appear, that is composed in the most ele- 
 gant and polite forms of speech, which are 
 natural to our tongue, when it is not height- 
 ened by that solemnity of phrase which 
 may be drawn from the sacred writings. It 
 has been said by some of the ancients, that 
 if the gods were to talk with men, they 
 would certainly speak in Plato's stile; but 
 I think we may say with justice, that when 
 mortals converse with their Creator, they 
 cannot do it in so proper a style as in 
 that of the Holy Scriptures." 
 
 On the model here recommended by 
 Addison, had the compilers of our liturgy 
 already formed the national service. The 
 little prayer I have inserted appears to me 
 to have copied the copies, without bur- 
 lesquing the original ; and I much question, 
 
51 
 
 under the censure of such great and reve- 
 rend prelates be it spoken, whether some of 
 the occasional petitions and thanksgivings, 
 which have issued from the modern bench, 
 bear upon the face of them so plausible or 
 deceptive a conformity. 
 
 Closely allied to a pious turn of mind, 
 is a just deference to riper years and natural 
 authority. This child, though actuated by 
 the impulse of strong and lively feelings, 
 was even at such an early period so much 
 under the influence of reason, as to be al- 
 ways ready to check the most ardent de- 
 sires of the moment, when they were repre- 
 sented as inexpedient or improper to be 
 complied with. Neither was his conviction, 
 in these cases, difficult to be procured. A 
 refusal neither called up his tears, nor sunk 
 him in a sullen silence. He soon brought 
 himself to believe, that any occasional check 
 or remonstrance arose only from a wish to 
 give him a right understanding of the duties 
 he had to perform, and the sentiments it 
 became him to cultivate. Indeed, he was 
 
52 
 
 always observed to derive a more than or- 
 dinary pleasure from the society of his 
 friends, when any little circumstance had 
 occurred, occasioning them to give him any 
 serious advice. 
 
 After the preceding remarks, it will 
 scarcely be necessary to say, that his dis- 
 position was truly affectionate. Even here 
 too, in the very overflowing of his nature, 
 he shewed his mind to be well constituted, 
 and his feelings under proper regulation. 
 His natural notions were not vet stretched 
 on the rack of pure, unadulterated justice: 
 neither would he have broken the magic of 
 the selfish and family pronoun "My," by sav- 
 ing the life even of Fenelon, in preference to 
 that of his own father*. His love branched 
 out, according to the design with which it 
 was implanted, from his parents to his next 
 kindred and connections, and thence in 
 succession to more distant friends. Of this 
 also some instances will now be adduced. 
 
 .* See Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Book 2. 
 Chap. 2. 
 
53 
 
 It will there be seen, that he felt a kind 
 and anxious interest in whatever related to 
 persons whom he knew; and had conceived 
 a more accurate idea, as to the concerns 
 principally engaging the attention of adults, 
 than is generally imparted to children. It 
 is the easiest department of education, to 
 communicate the knowledge of words; and 
 teachers by profession, whose time is their 
 estate, are happy to satisfy the demands of 
 their employers, without entering on the 
 more difficult province of things. 
 
 Hackney, 1802. 
 MY DEAR FATHER, 
 
 You will perhaps be surprised 
 to hear from me, but to answer an intention 
 which I had to-day, I now happen to have 
 an opportunity of writing to you, which I 
 use in as early a time as possible for me. 
 You will perhaps, and as I also hope, fly 
 
54 
 
 into great enjoyment at the receipt of this 
 letter, as all my intention is, to do it out of 
 compliment. All my hope and solicitation 
 of you is, to receive a letter, at least if you 
 have a minute or two, which is all I so- 
 licit, to spare, from you, which I shall re- 
 turn eagerly to read. I certainly shall en- 
 joy a letter from you as much as from any 
 body, as I do not know of my ever receiving 
 a letter, or even a note, before. I have 
 done most of the business for you of the 
 day; and, when we part, if ever we do, 
 (though I do not think it likely) I shall per- 
 haps long to get to my own beloved home, 
 and you, again. I do not say I shall never 
 meet with any disorder, as certainly it can- 
 not be determined, except by the Almighty ; 
 but, if I do; — 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T.M. 
 
Pa > 54, 
 
 u/>(n^ _ 
 
 oCcJt^r- J'dsC&jgsr- 
 
 
 
 
 JP an, useJZ curve/ a^^r -fa^ U*Lc& J &n££ ^rne^^Tv 
 
The next specimen is addressed to a 
 gentleman, holding the office of judge in 
 Canada, to whom, as a family connection, 
 Thomas was in the habit of writing an an- 
 nual letter. The hand- writing is remark- 
 ably pretty. He wrote on these occasions 
 con amore, as his pride was a little touched 
 with the idea of his letters being thought 
 worth transmitting across the Atlantic. The 
 superscription, in due. form, runs thus: 
 
 Mr, Williams, 
 
 a Lawyer, 
 Quebec, 
 
 Canada. 
 
 Hackney, May 1, 1802. 
 Saturday morning. 
 MY DEAR UNCLE, 
 
 It was my intention to write a 
 line or two to you; both since it is so long 
 since I have done so, because it is my plea- 
 
56 
 
 sure, and also I guess it to be yours. My 
 first enquiry shall be into your health, whe- 
 ther you go on well, and other things which 
 I will mention afterwards. — Now for an ac- 
 count of the little baby.— He grows very 
 much, and talks in near the same quantity ; 
 he has just been inoculated for the cow-pox, 
 which has proved very successful towards 
 him ; he has been christened Frederic, and 
 I love him very much. An enquiry is into 
 the going on of your affairs (not because I 
 too much interest myself in your affairs, 
 since that is rude) but because I, intending 
 to be civil, concern myself partly in your 
 ways. I was determined not to make my- 
 self content without giving you a little in- 
 formation about several of the ways in which 
 we go on (besides the baby, which I, as 
 you know, have before told you of). For 
 example, I will now tell you of my learn- 
 ing. — I go On very well in my Latin, and 
 have just begun arithmetic, and I hope in 
 time to do as well in the attempt. Now for 
 a little information concerning Benjamin. 
 
57 
 
 He is but very slow in learning to write, and 
 not much quicker in his Latin. I am sorry 
 to give you an account which is at all un- 
 favourable ; but, as it was my proposal to 
 tell you of Benjamin, I could not give you 
 a true account without making it as I have. 
 I have made an undertaking to teach him 
 to write, and also to teach him Latin, gra- 
 dually as I learn myself. It is hard to say 
 which I shall succeed in, if in either ; but 
 it is uncertain if I shall succeed in either. — 
 I wish it was possible for us to see you ; as 
 it would be an equal joy to see you at Que- 
 bec, as at home. — But since the occurrence 
 cannot happen without such an infinite 
 source of trouble to you or us, I must sa- 
 tisfy myself with hearing from you; which 
 I should like almost as well, being in general 
 a boy that is well enow satisfied with the 
 welfare he can have, which is always the 
 best possible. I suppose you have long 
 wondered at my not writing for such a 
 length of time, as well as of my mother's 
 stoppage between her last and next letter, 
 
58 
 
 so that in case you should, I set about writ- 
 ing, that your wonder (if you have any) 
 may be satisfied. — In one case at least I shall 
 be glad if you do; because altho' it was not, 
 it is now my purpose to satisfy it. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
 P. S. If you will have the goodness, (if 
 you have time,) to write me a letter, I should 
 think myself indebted, as well as obliged to 
 you; tho J I do not care whether it is a fold- 
 ing or two of a letter to my mother, or a 
 whole letter: and, provided it contains some 
 information, I do not care whether little or 
 much. 
 
59 
 
 It must have been just after some unlucky 
 instance of more than common idleness that 
 Thomas took up his pen, to have extorted 
 from him so unfavourable a report of Ben- 
 jamin's capacity and diligence. Thomas, 
 like all those who have a just title to be cri- 
 tical, was ever disposed to be candid ; and 
 was never backward in bearing testimony to 
 the merit of his brother. Yet as the latter 
 makes his appearance here to a disadvan- 
 tage, it would be unfair to let the present 
 occasion slip without observing, that Ben- 
 jamin has hitherto discovered a sufficient 
 aptitude for learning, and a laudable thirst 
 after knowledge. If he has not displayed 
 his brother's superlative genius, he has al- 
 ready done enough to heal the wounds of 
 pride, though those of affection can never 
 be closed. Such a loss must ever be a 
 subject of regret ; but it were ungrateful to 
 aggravate that regret into repining, when 
 the breach is repaired to every reasonable 
 extent, by the promise of producible talents 
 and an amiable heart. It appears by the 
 
60 
 
 preceding letter, that Benjamin was learn- 
 ing Latin when he was between four and 
 five years old. At the present time, when 
 he is just eight, his progress is, to say the 
 least of it, very respectable. But he seems 
 particularly to aspire after a branch of know- 
 ledge, to which Thomas was but beginning 
 to attend, and apparently with no very eager 
 zeal. Benjamin began to learn arithmetic 
 about two years ago ; not from any supposed 
 necessity for so early an entrance upon what 
 is generally considered as a dry study, but 
 led to it by a natural direction, the signs of 
 which were as visible in him, as the bent to 
 belles-lettres pursuits was evident in his bro- 
 ther. He is now become remarkably accu- 
 rate in all his processes; and capable of 
 carrying on in his head, without the assist- 
 ance of noting them down, a very consider- 
 able series of computations. As an instance 
 of this faculty, while he is now sitting at my 
 elbow, I have desired him to calculate in 
 his mind how many changes may be rung 
 on ten bells. He tells me, that the number is 
 
61 
 
 three million, six hundred and twenty-eight 
 thousand, eight hundred. I am willing to 
 give him credit for having brought it out right, 
 and to spare myself the trouble of going 
 through so long an operation upon paper as 
 he has done without it. He has advanced 
 as far as the double rule of three in vulgar 
 fractions; and just now tells me, that he has 
 forestalled his master, by finding out of him- 
 self the rule for the addition of decimals, 
 which he accomplished, by observing care- 
 fully how the first sum was worked in the 
 book, and by this he knew how to do all 
 the rest. He is learning French rapidly, 
 and takes much pleasure in it. He seems 
 also to have an inclination for drawing, which 
 will not be suffered to languish for want of 
 encouragement. Next to goodness of heart, 
 the surest indication of a valuable character 
 is a general taste for letters. This he caught 
 from the example of his brother, and reads 
 the best English authors on polite or enter* 
 taining subjects, with a due share of dis- 
 crimination, His temper is generous and 
 
62 
 
 affectionate ; his manners open and en- 
 gaging. 
 
 But it is time to resume the main sub- 
 ject. Thomas had a very delicate sense of 
 propriety; and was always mucli afraid of 
 being thought too inquisitive. In his letter 
 to his uncle, as above, he disclaims " inte- 
 resting himself too much in his affairs, since 
 that is rude;" and in another letter to a 
 lady, he thus expresses himself to a similar 
 effect : " I hope, if you write me an answer 
 to this letter, you will be so good as to tell 
 me about the health of your family, &c. 
 and other sorts of things which I hope I 
 am not impertinently curious to be acquaint- 
 ed with/' 
 
 The following passages will shew, that 
 he interested himself very warmly in that 
 great domestic event, the birth of a child. 
 He was indeed better acquainted with the 
 circumstances attending it, than many per- 
 sons might think either necessary or expedi- 
 ent at so early an age. 
 
 If it has not been laid down in express 
 
63 
 
 terms, as a fundamental principle of cer- 
 tain modern philosophers, that all facts are 
 to be stated in the broadest language, that 
 the veil of what has hitherto been called 
 decency, is to be rent asunder as the cover- 
 ing of affectation or hypocrisy, these mon- 
 strous consequences flow at least as natural 
 corollaries from the leading propositions of 
 the system. Kept in the rear, and reserved 
 for the heat and confusion of the battle, 
 they take the lover of novelty by surprise : 
 had they been drawn out on the roll of re- 
 gular forces, the device on their banner 
 would have shocked the public eye, by the 
 open defiance of correct feeling, by the ut- 
 ter subversion of morals and happiness. 
 But there is another extreme, equally fatal 
 to purity of mind, though less hostile to a 
 salutary decorum of manners. It is the vice 
 of almost every nurse, and of no few pa- 
 rents, that those coincidences attending the 
 increase of the species, which must soon 
 attract the curiosity of children in numerous 
 families, are not only to be disguised from 
 
64 
 
 from their natural enquiries, but wrapped 
 up in absolute falsehoods and manifest ab- 
 surdities. The new-born brother must be 
 dropped from the clouds, or dug up out of 
 the garden, to throw a meretricious varnish 
 over a tale, which nature would tell in terms 
 the most endearing, and nothing but an 
 imagination, prurient in the extreme, could 
 ever have represented as indelicate. To 
 avoid both these errors was an object aimed 
 at in the present case: whether it was in 
 any degree attained, may be inferred from 
 what follows. 
 
 Extract from a Letter dated Jan. 27? 1802. 
 
 I now write to say that my mo- 
 ther cannot favour you with the action, 
 (probably of writing) and also to inform you 
 of the coming of a little boy who was born 
 yesterday. — My mother has been long ex- 
 
65 
 
 pecting it, and also hopes you will write 
 her and me also, a nice long letter soon ; as 
 I have no doubt it will be the former. The 
 reception of it will be a great gratification 
 to me, as very likely, at least to me, that 
 of this letter will be the same to you. — I 
 will now with great pleasure inform you, 
 that my mother is tolerably well, and has 
 as little illness as can be expected from the 
 coming of a child; and I also inform you, 
 that the child is a very healthy little boy, 
 and that my mother of course hopes, and 
 also thinks, that it will live. I should like 
 from thence to hear in your letter to me how 
 your mother goes on, and whether her rheu- 
 matic complaint gets any better or worse. — 
 
 I should also like to hear of General 's 
 
 fare, as yours is a family which I am per- 
 haps as much concerned for as any one. 
 You would gratify me if you would in your 
 answer describe your thoughts of the little 
 boy just born yesterday, by my account: 
 and also tell me how you would like a first 
 sight of it. In my opinion it is a very fine 
 
 p 
 
66 
 
 child ; and I also with pleasure hope and 
 trust that it will both live from its appear- 
 ance, and form a good life : also it is to be 
 trusted by me that it will be obedient to its 
 
 good, kind, and attentive parents 
 
 All this family are in perfect health except 
 my mother, who cannot certainly be ex- 
 pected to be in health just a day or two 
 after the coming of a child. But I hope 
 your family, except your mother, have the 
 same fortune as the chief part of my own. 
 I am interested with the welfare of your 
 mother, being the same about your family: 
 for who can be interested about the whole 
 of your ikmily, without being interested 
 about her ? You know that people could 
 not be so ; 
 
67 
 
 Extract from a Letter dated March 7, 1802. 
 
 I have haste to comply with 
 my great desire of writing to my dearest 
 
 Miss , to give her my sincere thanks for 
 
 her last kind address to me. Perhaps you 
 was somewhat disappointed at my silence; 
 and in case you should, I now write, that 
 your disappointment may not increase. . . . 
 Frederic, as my mother also tells you, con- 
 tinues without ailment, except his pain, 
 which does not alarm me ; but to return to 
 the subject of our welfare, and to the inter- 
 rogation of your own — as I have a sort of 
 pleasure both in the description of ours, 
 and the interrogation of yours, I have now 
 an opportunity to tell you of them, Avhich 
 I will make use of. — We have lately gone 
 on very well, and the nice little Frederic 
 has I believe a week or ten days lost his 
 pain, which same pain I spoke of when I 
 
m 
 
 said, " Frederic, as my mother also tells 
 you, continues without ailment, except his 
 pain, which does not alarm me." It would 
 be happier without pain; but what a bless- 
 ing from the Great Being to keep him 
 without ailment ! — He is now two days older 
 than seven weeks. — I rejoice at the getting 
 well of my mother, for two reasons which I 
 do not hide from your intelligence; one, 
 because she is more able now to attend to 
 me and my brother Benjamin (though to 
 Frederic equally); and the other, because I 
 like her company, as she is so important a 
 relation of mine. — 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
69 
 
 The following extract from a letter, writ- 
 ten nearly about the same time, refers to 
 his plan of an imaginary country, somewhat 
 similar to Utopia. Not that he had ever 
 heard of that celebrated romance ; but his 
 own ideas suggested a system of visionary 
 perfection, such as probably presents itself 
 to most ardent and virtuously disposed 
 minds, in nearly the same shape. The al- 
 lusions must be left to be rendered intel- 
 ligible, when the history of Allestone comes 
 to be explained. 
 
 " Now to the dear little brother, whom 
 every body (not excepting you) admires. — 
 He is grown a very great fellow since you 
 saw him last, and I dare say you will ad- 
 mire him very much. .... I am sure you 
 are right, my ever dear friend, in saying 
 that I am fond of the dear little Frederic. 
 I intend to let him go to the famous uni- 
 versity of Lalldab, not to be taught by Al-> 
 cander, (you know who I mean) but by a 
 famous orator, who may be named " the 
 master of all Lalldab," but his proper 
 
70 
 
 name (I mean his Christian) is Adoleo de 
 Levie." 
 
 " I am sure I should very readily let 
 your mother see my map, &c. &c. if I could, 
 being in connection with such a friend of 
 mine as w she whom I am addressing;" and 
 as soon as Frederic has received as much 
 tuition from the orator, he shall be taught 
 arithmetic by Dr. Scluggish, as he is a 
 great mathematician. I intend him to be 
 taught the classics by the orator. — But now 
 a little account of his health ;...." 
 
 Having dwelt perhaps more than suf- 
 ficiently on the style and spirit of his cor- 
 respondence, it is now time to exhibit some 
 other specimens of his ingenuity and talent. 
 General observations almost always fail, in 
 giving any thing like life or body to the 
 drawing of a character. Description re- 
 quires to be particularized by anecdote, or 
 it only amuses the imagination, instead of 
 coming home to the feelings. To illustrate, 
 by circumstances, the turn of this bo} r 's 
 mind in conversation, before we proceed 
 
71 
 
 to his works of a more fanciful complexion, 
 may probably increase the interest, as well 
 as diversify the tenor of this narrative. 
 
 When he was a little more than five 
 years old, Thomas, sitting at dinner with a 
 knife in his hand, asked the following ques- 
 tion. " Pray, Mother, what is the opposite 
 to sharp ?" He was answered, " Blunt, my 
 dear." On this he immediately observed, 
 " Then my knife is very blunt ; for I cannot 
 cut with it." His little brother Benjamin, 
 two years younger, wished to have some 
 share in the conversation, yet without per- 
 ceiving thoroughly the drift of what had 
 passed. He therefore enquired, " What is 
 the opposite to a door?" His mother re- 
 plied, " I know of no opposite to a door. 
 The qualities or circumstances of persons or 
 things, by which their resemblance or op- 
 position is marked out, are usually express- 
 ed by adjectives. The noun substantive 
 simply represents the person or thing itself/' 
 Thomas without hesitation interposed with 
 this remark. " But there are opposites 
 
72 
 
 among nouns, you know ; at least in nouns 
 of behaviour. Guilt is a noun, and it is the 
 opposite of innocence." 
 
 We were seldom, if ev«r, in the habit 
 of testifying in his presence, any surprise or 
 admiration at the most apposite and inge- 
 nious of his remarks. Though it was by no 
 means to be wished, that he should enter- 
 tain a disparaging opinion of himself; nei- 
 ther was it the least of our happiness to find, 
 that he was sufficiently modest in comparing 
 his own with the talents and attainments of 
 other children. To have lighted up the 
 embers of vanity, by an ill-judged and ex- 
 travagant applause, would have been the 
 excess of silly fondness. Yet were it im- 
 possible not to have felt an inward glow of 
 pleasure on this occasion, at his not only 
 so clearly comprehending the reply to his 
 brother s question, but adducing so appro- 
 priate an example in support of his own 
 distinction. 
 
 About the same time, on being told by 
 a lady, that she would send for him on the 
 
73 
 
 following day, when he should draw as 
 much as he pleased, he said with some de- 
 gree of impatience, " I wish to-morrow 
 would come directly/' After a short pause, 
 during which he had leisure to recollect 
 himself, and resume the philosopher, he 
 enquired, " Where can to-morrow be now ? 
 It must he somewhere; for every thing is in 
 some place." When he had considered a 
 little longer, he added, " Perhaps to-morrow 
 is in the sun/' 
 
 " Learning is not so much esteemed by 
 wise men, as it is despised by fools." On 
 meeting with this aphorism, which struck 
 his fancy as a mere play upon Words, with- 
 out any real meaning, he thus corrected it 
 by an extemporaneous remark. " I think the 
 person who wrote that sentence was himself 
 very foolish ; for wise men esteem learning 
 as much as possible; and fools cannot de- 
 spise it more." 
 
 The occasion on which he wrote the fol- 
 lowing paper, will in some measure account 
 for the confusion and incoherence of the 
 
74 
 
 thoughts in some places. He happened to 
 be in company, where pen and paper were 
 given him, with a request to write a little 
 essay. As he hesitated on what subject to 
 fix, his friends suggested that of Spring. 
 While he was engaged upon it, several 
 young men and boys, who were present, 
 were continually playing with him, and in- 
 terrupting the train of his thoughts. Taken 
 as he was by surprise, and allowed no lei- 
 sure for previous reflection, the closeness 
 and regularity, of which he would other- 
 wise have been capable, were not to be ex- 
 pected. Add to this, that his attention was 
 divided by surrounding objects, and the 
 whole composition occupied no more time 
 than was required for him to write down his 
 ideas as they arose. It seemed necessary to 
 premise thus much, because the paper would 
 not have been inserted, but for the circum- 
 stances under which it was produced. 
 
75 
 
 AN ESSAY UPON SPRING, 
 
 IN PROSE. 
 
 " At the approach of spring, I must con- 
 fess that some distinguishing is made from 
 the crocuses, polyanthuses, &c. and all 
 those early-coming-in-the-year flowers; and 
 after a fading of them, it is evident to me 
 that a surety of spring's arrival advances 
 forward. Next, of what merit is it to ex- 
 ercise the pleasantry of spring, if it takes 
 off the necessary attention to your real ex- 
 ercise of mind ? There, if that happened, 
 might as well be no spring. How destitute 
 of worth are they, who take great exercise 
 of legs, if it takes off their attention ! They 
 might as well be shut out of the world. It 
 is true, it is one of the most beautiful of all 
 the seasons ; but then it should not inter- 
 fere with real business. It is to be sure 
 necessary to the health at proper intervals. 
 
76 
 
 though negations may be made: those ne- 
 gations would do no good. People, even 
 not possessing prophecy, may bode that; 
 for you may depend, it would be true. It 
 is a rule with my parents to tell me, not to 
 let amusement interfere with business, but 
 to take amusement at proper intervals. 
 Exercise of limbs in April or May, would 
 probably be the amusement ; for though I 
 have not heard this yet, I dare say I shall 
 in future. This is all, what I partly think, 
 and partly know ; so it is all a sort of cer- 
 tainty. This is a running-thro'-the-country 
 subject with Allestonians, as they have of- 
 ten the same subject in their heads. Spring, 
 as Allestonians say, on fine days, and 
 adapted partly, does good to the health; 
 and a just saying for the country, as they 
 say no sayings but just ones. Nothing can 
 be truer than that ; for a favourable account 
 must be always given of that virtuous peo- 
 ple. This is as much as I have to say; the 
 conclusion is, that I think spring will last 
 as I've described." 
 
77 
 
 Writing fables was an employment of 
 his pen, in which he particularly delighted. 
 His invention was quick and various ; but 
 the unity of the story cannot in general be 
 supposed to have been very consistently 
 supported, nor the moral drift to have been 
 always very obvious or pertinent. There 
 was however, for the most part, more mean- 
 ing than he well knew how to express. His 
 thoughts often wandered from the straight 
 forward road in which he was travelling; 
 but he did not look with a vacant or a 
 drowsy eye on the various objects in his 
 wild excursion. The two following fables 
 have each of them the same title ; but their 
 subject is altogether different. The date of 
 the first is Sept. 15, 1801. That of the se- 
 cond, May, 1802. 
 
t; : / 
 
 78 
 
 FABLES. 
 
 1. THE HORSE AND HIS MASTER. 
 
 A house, passing by a well with his mas- 
 ter, one day, which was very deep, said to 
 him, I am very thirsty; may I go and 
 drink out of that well ? Yes, said his master, 
 if you do not want a great deal. No; said 
 the horse, I don't want much. Then you 
 may, said the master. Then the horse went, 
 and presently came up again. Now, said 
 the master, you are a very good horse for 
 coming up so soon: you may always go 
 again when you ask. May I ? said the 
 horse. It seems then, I have a very good 
 master. They continued their journey 
 home, and got home after a walk of a mile 
 and a half. When they arrived home the 
 master took his horse into the stable, and 
 sometimes went to see how his horse went 
 
79 
 
 on. One day, when the master went to 
 see his horse, he found him in a bad state 
 of health ; and presently the horse died ; and 
 the master survived him, who often wanted 
 to ride, and could not. 
 
 A FABLE; 
 
 NAMED, 
 
 THE HORSE AND HIS MASTER. 
 
 One day, it came to pass, that a farmer, 
 having a great loss in the way of beasts, 
 from a disease in them, which suddenly 
 arose, and without his knowledge for a time, 
 had much ado to keep as many of his beasts 
 alive as he could, employing horse-doctors, 
 &c. But here is an exception to what I 
 have said. — One of his horses proved very 
 healthy for this unhappy happening, though 
 his health was affected ; and the master, 
 thinking it a good thing for him to be in 
 
80 
 
 the air, they set out together. The horse 
 soon said, " I am very hungry ; and, as 
 those are your hay-makers, can you suffer 
 me to eat a little of your hay ?" He replied, 
 " I can." So the horse, thanking the farmer 
 for his grateful allowance, went and eat 
 some, and in a little time said, " Have I 
 had enough?" The farmer answered, " You 
 have had the allowance I give you, if you 
 have satisfied your hunger." The horse 
 said, " I have." So they went on, and ar- 
 rived at a paper-mill, the owner of which 
 the master was acquainted with. So, as he 
 went in, he left his horse waiting at the 
 door, guarded from robbers by a dog, who 
 was accustomed to the office of barking, 
 and driving away any marauder that chanc- 
 ed to lie in wait of robbing the master of 
 his horse. But the master soon came out 
 of the place, and led his horse homewards, 
 when the horse said " I find I have reason 
 to regard this dog as yourself, he behaves 
 so well in defending me from robbers." The 
 farmer replied, " You in my opinion have." 
 
81 
 
 So the horse, meditating for a little while, 
 found out a new discourse to take up ; and 
 said, " In one case I am not certain whe- 
 ther I shall like home or not ; which is, in 
 case the disease should kill me/' After an 
 answer of the master's, they got home, 
 and the disease killed both him and his 
 master. 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 " They who fear generally cannot avoid 
 bad chances/' 
 
 The psalm, already inserted, has been 
 noticed for its quaint resemblance to the 
 old translators. With this exception, Thomas 
 had hitherto indicated but little of any poe- 
 tical propensity in himself, though his read- 
 ing turned very much on poetical subjects. 
 The fire burst out suddenly and by acci- 
 dent ; but it lasted a very short time. The 
 effort of attaining so many perfections at 
 
 G 
 
once, as are required in this, species of com- 
 position, was greater than to admit of being 
 frequently repeated at his tender years. The 
 abrupt manner in which it was called forth, 
 is perhaps the most curious circumstance 
 attending it. 
 
 One evening, he was with a lady, who 
 was in the habit of amusing herself occa- 
 sionally by writing verses. This happened 
 to be her employment while he was with 
 her, and he interrupted her rather too fre- 
 quently. She therefore requested him to 
 find some entertainment for himself. While 
 he was deliberating on his choice, she pro- 
 posed to him to follow her example, and 
 endeavour to write some verses. Without 
 a moment's hesitation, he took pen and 
 paper, and in a very short time produced 
 the following lines. His friend, with whom 
 he was passing the evening, had taken it 
 for granted, that he was merely transcrib- 
 ing some passage from memory. She was 
 therefore not a little surprised to find her- 
 self the occasion of his first poetical essay. 
 
83 
 
 These verses appeal so forcibly from every 
 rule of methodized style or thinking, to 
 a new-born, natural, and vigorous art- 
 lessness, that it would be both unjust and 
 impertinent to consider them as subjects of 
 criticism. Yet a remark or two, for the 
 purpose of elucidation, will scarcely be 
 censured as superfluous, since the opera- 
 tions and progress of his mind cannot be 
 supposed to lie so much open to the reader 
 of these pages, as they had long done to the 
 close inspection of the writer. 
 
 The subject of the opening lines is poe- 
 tical. The thoughts, as far as this descrip- 
 tive strain extends, are for the most part 
 clothed in appropriate diction and harmo- 
 nious numbers. As he proceeds, he glides 
 imperceptibly into a more didactic style. 
 Here, it must be confessed, he often loses 
 sight of the poet; and relapses so nearly 
 into prose, as only now and then to retain 
 any portion of rhythm. Yet even to the 
 last, though wearied and exhausted with so 
 
84 
 
 unusual an exercise, he recollects himself 
 occasionally, and produces a firm and me- 
 trical line. After all, it will appear on per- 
 usal, that where he failed as the bard, he 
 could still support the character of the rea- 
 soner. The ideas follow one another in a 
 just and regular concatenation; and gene- 
 rally find expressions suited to their tenor. 
 The argument constantly presses forward, 
 without being drawn aside, or in danger of 
 escaping from our hold, to run after foreign 
 objects or incongruous speculations. Had 
 the author of these lines been better ac- 
 quainted with the mechanism of versifica- 
 tion and regular arrangement, which prac- 
 tice would have mastered by degrees, he 
 would have had no reason to despair of be- 
 coming a poet. 
 
 I n me delight is spread, to mark th' approach 
 Of Spring, when roses and all other flowers 
 Scatter with beauty the new-moistened ground 
 Of the then bright'ning year: to mark their shew 
 
85 
 
 Delightful to the eyes of infancy, 
 
 in which happy time 
 
 The playfulness and thoughtlessness of life, 
 
 In the pursuit of sometimes sportive tricks, 
 
 Some bad, some harmless, but amusing ; 
 
 At least in childhood then : the weakness of the mind 
 
 In infant time, insensible of what 
 
 Will often happen, in afterward repentance ! 
 
 The wisdom of good child'ren, whose small 
 
 Ability they own, who're not inclined 
 
 To praise themselves ; — exert their power to the end. 
 
 Their power soon does end ; — 
 
 While man, grown up with the not many years 
 
 That human creatures have, who all complain 
 
 Of swift time's short'ness, altho' when good 
 
 Are taken to another better world. 
 
 Where then they know no pain, 
 
 No sickness, no disaccommodation ever. 
 
 But everlasting happiness is spread 
 
 Over the place, where then we think no more 
 
 Of the great agonies we undergo 
 
 In former life, in the so much worse world, 
 
 Though not always, but very often bad, 
 
 Which it would not have been, if not made so 
 
 By the now artful work of its inhabitants, 
 
 Either to good, or sometimes to bad things : 
 
 But I have reason to suppose, 'tis most to bad. 
 
 When bad people are sent to that most miserable place, 
 
Confin'd in chains, fire, and everlasting pains 
 
 How great then, 1 may say, is the difference 
 
 Between the bad and good ! How different is 
 
 Their afterward existence ! 
 
 When sent to bounty, or to pain, 
 
 No resemblance appears among the change 
 
 Of scenes, some more beautiful, and some more ugly: — 
 
 And the more joyful scenes of Heaven : — 
 
 Where the Lord's everlasting praise does never end ; 
 
 We then employ our everlasting time 
 
 In nothing else, but the 'fore-mentioned praise. 
 
 When good boys think upon their future happiness 
 
 In heaven, they reflect with joy : — 
 
 ■ How joyful it must be 
 
 To be before the presence of the Lord ! 
 
 Oh ! Then how pressing is th' idea of the end 
 
 Of the infamous man ! When we reflect 
 
 On his approach to death, loaded with crimes ! 
 
 In three days he's sent down ! And then confin'd 
 
 In chains unknown ; — exists there all the time ! 
 
 The good man then, at least his soul, flies up 
 
 To everlasting happiness. 
 
 Oh ! then how horrid must it be 
 
 To be a naughty man ! Then to reflect 
 
 On th' good man's happiness above ! Then how 
 
 Superior it is with the good man ! 
 
 — ■■ His former state 
 
 Is also happy, as well as in the future.-^ 
 
87 
 
 And two men being good, when one reflects 
 Upon the other's goodness, it contributes 
 To th' happiness of the reflecting man. 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 Feb. 3, 1802. 
 
 Shortly after this he made a second, but 
 far less successful attempt. It is indeed so 
 confused, that only the opening lines, and 
 another short passage, as a specimen, are 
 worth inserting. The letter, with which he 
 presents it to his grandmother, is worth tran- 
 scribing on two accounts. It gives his own 
 explanation of the design, which prevailed 
 in his mind, while writing both poems; and 
 at the same time shews how sensible he was, 
 that a courteous manner, in offering any 
 tribute of respect, contributes infinitely more 
 than the value of the gift, to render it ac- 
 ceptable. 
 
88 
 
 Hackney, Feb. 15, 1802. 
 MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER, 
 
 As I have heard that you know 
 the already written poem, I have taken a 
 sheet to write you another.— This will per- 
 haps please you as well or better; for I 
 both intend it to be a little on the subject 
 of the world, and chiefly on my great wish 
 of its improvement. — You will perhaps be 
 in some surprise at hearing from me so soon 
 again before an answer to the other letter — 
 but the compliance of my wish is very ne- 
 cessary; for I would much rather not send 
 a poem to you, than send it without a letter 
 accompanying it, to beg you to accept of 
 it. — I besides account for it to be more civil 
 to beg somebody to accept of any thing, 
 that I write to or for them, than not. It is 
 very just, as was my observation in my last 
 
89 
 
 letter, as you know, that I should re 
 at another sight of you. 
 
 oice 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
 I beg you humbly to accept of these 
 lines : 
 
 When the Spring comes, her warm embrace 
 
 Is pleasant to the infants, who are glad 
 
 Of her approach, blooming, and softening their cheek 
 
 Delightful to be sought in painting, and with joy. 
 
 Sweet infancy ! But, rather, void of love, 
 
 The infant's knowledge is but small : 
 
 After some sentiments, not very intel- 
 ligible, about teaching languages ; and after 
 a repetition, in other words, of his former 
 prolusion on the sportive tricks of children, 
 he goes on to personify Excellence, and 
 speaks of her in the following terms : 
 
90 
 
 That she, superior to all bad things, 
 Forms virtues, and industry ;-r-the parent of 
 All virtues, love, and fondness, who all reign 
 At her command, who does preserve them all. 
 
 Having seen with pleasure these two at- 
 tempts, I was so far misled, as to put him 
 upon a third, at my own particular request. 
 He complied with his usual alacrity; but 
 after sitting for a few minutes, with his pen 
 in his hand, he burst into tears, saying that 
 he was a stupid fellow, and could not write 
 verses that day. After so significant a hint, 
 I determined never to mention the subject 
 again; and I do not know that he ever made 
 another effort of the same kind. 
 
 He appeared to be himself more than 
 usually pleased with his first attempt, which 
 he shewed without hesitation to several of 
 his friends. There seemed indeed to be a 
 little jealousy on his part, respecting his 
 claim to originality. As a proof of this, it 
 was observed by some person, that the study 
 of Milton had probably given a colour both 
 
91 
 
 coun- 
 
 to his thoughts and expression. His 
 tenanee suddenly flashed fire ; and lie ex- 
 claimed with more than ordinary vehemence, 
 " No! not at all! No such thing! 1 never 
 set my eyes upon the book V* 
 
 In fact, there are many parts of Paradise 
 Lost, which we should not have been alto- 
 gether satisfied in submitting to his inspec- 
 tion at so early an age, his mind tending as 
 it did to the free indulgence of an enthu- 
 siastic and visionary fancy; and his love of 
 poetry would scarcely have been satisfied 
 with selected passages. It is true, that his 
 imagination, ardent as it might appear to 
 be, was hitherto under good government; 
 but we felt the necessity of keeping it so. 
 On the whole therefore, when an inclination 
 discovered itself, in his first poetical reverie, 
 to dwell on " chains, fire, and everlasting 
 pains," and to describe the gloomy para- 
 phernalia of our creed, I was far from dis- 
 pleased, on reflection, that nature had grown 
 weary, and had compelled him to halt for 
 a time in the outset of his career. 
 
92 
 
 It may be necessary again to guard 
 against an impression, which this solitary 
 attempt at dictating to his genius must be 
 calculated to convey. It was indeed a 
 slight and transient deviation from the ge- 
 neral plan of entrusting his progress to his 
 own will and pleasure, or at most of only 
 following, where he led the way. But I 
 cannot, for the sake of those parents who 
 may hereafter be similarly circumstanced, 
 inculcate too strongly my conviction, found- 
 ed on experience, of the proper and rational 
 method to be pursued, in educating a child 
 of superior endowments. Acting to the 
 best of our judgment in the present case, 
 we were not particularly eager to impart 
 knowledge by direct, regular, and long 
 continued lessons, or more fashionable 
 lectures, involving, as they must have 
 done, an irksome and unhealthy confine- 
 ment. We thought it more for his ad- 
 vantage, to lend ourselves as much as pos- 
 sible to his service, by being ready at all 
 times to answer his questions, to resolve his 
 doubts, and to satisfy his curiosity. His 
 
93 
 
 mother and he were so little asunder, that 
 all her acquisitions were incidentally/ and 
 almost without design, communicated to 
 him. If the difference between him and 
 other children was at all to be attributed to 
 any other cause, than his own ardour and 
 industry, it is in this point, that his domes- 
 tic circumstances might be considered as 
 favourable. His instructors were not per- 
 tinacious or scholastic in the exercise of 
 their office; but they had his welfare too 
 much at heart, ever to have neglected their 
 charge. 
 
 But the most singular instance of a fer- 
 tile imagination, united with the power of 
 making all he met with in books or con- 
 versation his own, remains yet behind. 
 This was the idea of a visionary country, 
 called Allestone, which was so strongly im- 
 pressed on his own mind, as to enable him 
 to convey an intelligible and lively tran- 
 script of it in description. Of this delight- 
 ful territory he considered himself as king. 
 He had formed the project of writing its 
 
94 
 
 history, and had executed the plan in de- 
 tached parts. Neither did his ingenuity 
 stop here; for he drew a map of the coun- 
 try, giving names of his own invention to 
 the principal mountains, rivers, cities, sea- 
 ports, villages, and trading towns. As 
 learning was uniformly the object of his 
 highest respect, and principal attention, he 
 endowed his kingdom most liberally with 
 universities. The professors, whose offices 
 were some of them mentioned incidentally 
 in a preceding letter, were appointed by 
 name; and numerous statutes were enacted, 
 which for their grave promulgation would 
 scarcely have been disowned by more an- 
 cient and venerable founders. 
 
 The map of Allestone, in whatever light 
 it is viewed, is a very remarkable produc- 
 tion. Crowded as it is with names, some 
 absurd, but others ingenious and appropri- 
 ate, it evinces an uncommon fertility of in- 
 vention. The drawing is executed with care, 
 and the propriety of the design made hap- 
 pily to coincide with its whimsical and ca- 
 
FOLDOUT BLANK 
 
*! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Co. 
 
 S'PcU 
 
 : 
 
 
 Rsktib 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 W" ( tt 
 
 OWE -_^s, 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 r V <3 .0 °o 
 
 ' 
 
 r 
 
 1 ■ v 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 Bobb 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 ? •= 
 
 SO) 
 
 o J 
 
 ■v-^xj ^ <{/levtsedMap 
 //// , 
 
 Countrj 
 
 writus' 
 
 ' Ob 
 
 
 — — 
 
95 
 
 pricious humour. Excepting perhaps in one 
 instance, and; of that I am so doubtful, that 
 I shall leave the reader to find it out, there 
 is no violation of nature or probability. 
 The country is an island, and therefore the 
 better calculated for the scene of the trans- 
 actions he has assigned to it. The rivers, 
 for the most part, rise in such situations, 
 and flow in such directions, as they would 
 in reality assume. Their course is marked 
 out with reference to the position of prin- 
 cipal towns, and other objects of general 
 convenience. The map is therefore not so 
 much to be looked at for the neatness of its 
 appearance, and the symmetry of its pro- 
 portions; but as an exercise of the mind 
 comparing the propriety of its own nascent 
 ideas and inventions, with the performances 
 of adult artists, founded on observation and 
 authority. 
 
 The history of Allestone is ushered in 
 with so pompous a " Prospectus/' that I 
 suspect its phraseology to have been partly 
 copied from the Proposals of some periodi- 
 cal publisher, which might happen to have 
 
96 , 
 
 been lying by him at the time. It is indeed 
 a complete burlesque. He tells us, that, 
 " No people, especially Allestonians, have 
 been more wonderful and remarkable in the 
 work than the Nimesbeians, having exer- 
 cised their part in it with the utmost clever- 
 ness and knowledge. They are also re- 
 markable for their attachment to the soil." 
 From this last attribute of the Nimesbei- 
 ans, and others which follow in the original, 
 it may without hesitation be concluded, that 
 the pattern of all this shrewdness and na- 
 tionality is to be found in Scotland. It 
 gives an air of probability to this conjec- 
 ture, that " they love to dwell on the beau- 
 ties of its lofty hills, and to expatiate on the 
 noble and bold edifices of their old ances- 
 tors ; especially to dwell in that noble castle, 
 just by that famous mount, the mount Bir- 
 filace." The prospectus closes with the usual 
 information, that " It will contain the fol- 
 lowing views: 
 
 Wallace Rock, between Nimesby and 
 Lalldab : 
 
 Nimesby Castle, near Nimesby: 
 
97 
 
 Old Ruins of Pistilgo: 
 
 Waterfal of the River Nimesby : 
 
 The River Nimesby: 
 
 Countib sea: 
 
 Forgiveness Gulf: 
 
 Nimesby : 
 
 Lalldab: 
 
 Lalldab Castle, Lalldab. 
 
 The history itself is involved in no little 
 confusion and uncertainty. From the ec- 
 centricity of the project, and the unfinished 
 state in which it was left, I shall not aim at 
 reducing it into form; but merely select a 
 few specimens, for the purpose of marking, 
 what form his ideas assumed, and how much 
 they partook of his own natural character. 
 It is written in a series of letters, and may 
 truly be said to begin from Leda's egg. It 
 sets out with the birth of the first king, in 
 the first year of Aliestone. 
 
 " He had no mother, or father, as he 
 was the first Allestonian born. He could 
 not certainly receive great instruction, being 
 without parents : but as soon as ever he was 
 
 H 
 
93 
 
 able to begin learning, he practised as much 
 as he could. He, however, by his dili- 
 gence, attentive thought, and industry, also 
 well-timed magnanimity, generosity, &c. 
 acquired wonderful instruction. When he 
 was six or seven years old, he undertook a 
 journey to Charmchock, in which he was 
 very successful." 
 
 The people appear to have arrived but 
 by degrees at that state of moral perfection, 
 which Thomas imagines them to have at- 
 tained in his own time. We are informed 
 in one of the earliest letters, that King 
 James the First was of a bad disposition, 
 and committed suicide. In the next* the 
 scene is varied to a more agreeable subject, 
 by the birth of some Allestonian children. 
 
 " The principal of them was very good : 
 he learned every language of my imagina- 
 tion, and when he grew up, was continually 
 building, and things of that sort/' 
 
 In another place, he asserts " this his- 
 tory to be a rational work enough/' Such 
 a claim is perhaps only to be admitted with 
 
99 
 
 a certain measure of allowance. Whether 
 it in any degree maintains its pretensions, 
 may be decided on the evidence of the fol- 
 lowing letters. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 By this time, the kindness of the 
 manners of the Allestonians was fortunately 
 increased. The then present King, George 
 the First, was of a good, amiable disposi- 
 tion, and placed himself on the throne when 
 he was about ten years of age : and a very 
 proper time, too. He was good all through 
 his life ; kind to his subjects, good-natured 
 to every thing that belonged to him ; but 
 what I have already said is enough of that 
 subject. His subjects, and also every thing 
 of his, were kind in return. 
 
100 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 The Allestonians lived in good 
 houses. The Allestonian houses were chief- 
 ly built of stone, &c. The Allestonians 
 were very clever people. The dress of the 
 men of Allestone was, and is, very com- 
 modious. They, in their houses, wear no- 
 thing on their heads, and wear no cravats. 
 In their walks they have a little napped 
 hat, which has a ribbon almost at the top, 
 with a buckle to keep it on. The men 
 have a small head. They wear no waist- 
 coats, have a linen shirt, and quartered 
 shoes, one flannel shirt, and wear brown 
 breeches. 
 
101 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 The Allestonian women dressed 
 themselves in a commodious way. They 
 wear their hair with a toupee : hoops are 
 usual here : the ladies wear a shift and two 
 dimity petticoats, and a long gown. When 
 they go to church, a fan is necessary to 
 their dress. Allestone increased with num- 
 bers of Allestonians. They were all of a 
 good character, and were inclined to gene- 
 rosity. One of their principal acts of ge» 
 nerosity was, that one of them gave another 
 a telescope, and the one which was treated 
 with it said to the other, " I'll give it back 
 to you again, Sir." — That was when King 
 James the Third was present; a good king 
 he was. He placed himself on the throne 
 directly he was born, which was in 288. 
 
102 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 In 288, two more Allestonians 
 were bora. They were good. It soon oc- 
 curred, that they chose to live together ; 
 and the one carried the other to the place 
 where he chose them to live. Before long, 
 two Allestonian children were born to them. 
 The other ones took good care of their chil- 
 dren, so as to educate them well. They 
 grew up to be clever men. In 289, they 
 found that the revenue of Allestone amount- 
 ed to eight thousand millions. They were 
 very much surprised to find, that the reve- 
 nue of their country was so great. They 
 were also glad : . I think they ought to be. 
 
103 
 
 In addition to this political history, we 
 find a series of private and domestic adven- 
 tures, founded on the personal virtues and 
 characteristic pursuits of the Allestonian 
 people. Their merit is various. They 
 sometimes hit point blank, at other times 
 drop short in their flight, like the random 
 arrows of an unpractised marksman. The 
 story of Adoleo and Ophelius begins thus : 
 " The governors of Allestone, who had 
 much knowledge of good nature and can- 
 dour; settled a plan of benefiting the coun- 
 try. There came two men, the one named 
 Adoleo, and the other Ophelius; while the 
 one I mentioned first was thirty, and the 
 latter twenty-nine. They were also good- 
 natured and candid, and thanked the go- 
 vernors for receiving them kindly. The 
 governors let them stay for five years, and 
 I will relate all that happened during that 
 time/' 
 
 The narrative of their fortunes, with 
 their rencounters and escapes, is not very 
 consistently made out. The pathetic cir^ 
 
104 
 
 cumstances are left in a mysterious arid aw- 
 ful obscurity, under which a dramatist or 
 novel-writer would have sheltered his ina- 
 bility to explain all the intricacies of his 
 own plot. We are given to understand, 
 that the younger of the two had occasion to 
 undertake a journey to Malleb. The na- 
 ture of his business there is by no means 
 too tediously particularised. It appears 
 plainly however to have incurred the cen- 
 sure, as well as excited the apprehensions 
 of the elder; as we are informed in the fol- 
 lowing account of their meeting. " A few 
 minutes after Ophelius arrived at the palace, 
 6 Ophelius/ said Adoleo, < do you know, 
 that I was in pain about you all the time 
 you were in Malleb, lest any thing should 
 have befallen you that was dangerous : and 
 I am very glad to see you come home safe/ 
 ' I thank you/ replies Ophelius, just as he 
 was going up stairs: s I have been in no 
 danger at all/ He presently went; and 
 while he was gone, Adoleo could not help 
 reflecting with scorn and horror upon the 
 journey of Ophelius to Malleb/' 
 
105 
 
 The biographer of these visionary phi- 
 losophers and politicians had a greater 
 charge upon his hands, than he well knew* 
 how to manage. Yet did he perceive many 
 leading features both of morality and po- 
 licy. As an instance of this keen regard, he 
 was sensible how forward it stood in the list 
 of a statesman's duties, to keep a strict eye 
 on all the transactions, taking place within 
 the limits of his department, and therefore 
 sanctioned by his authority. 
 
 " Ophelius found one of the governors 
 writing a letter up stairs, and at the same 
 period of time keeping watch over what was 
 going on in the front road before the Coun- 
 tibian palace, in which the governors lived. 
 Ophelius was in another room, doing some 
 sort of business of his, which I cannot re- 
 late; but, though his business was not quite 
 such a long time doing as the governor's, 
 he waited to accompany his lord, (as he 
 used to call the former) dow T n stairs/' 
 
 The next story is on a less ostentatious 
 subject. Filial duties and conjugal afFec- 
 
106 
 
 tion are the topics of domestic interest. 
 With due allowance for some little incon- 
 sistencies, and a few inconsequent parts, 
 this tale is not without something, which 
 reflects the image of the writer's pure and 
 feeling mind. 
 
 STORY II. 
 
 THE FAMILY. 
 
 Once upon a time, in a pleasant street in 
 Countib, that was about a mile off from 
 the palace, there lived a young lady, who 
 had before rather an unfortunate life. Now 
 I intend to relate all that happened in her 
 life ; which was well worth describing, after 
 she grew up. As soon as ever she grew up 
 old enough to be able to look for a house 
 by herself, she settled a plan of doing it, 
 and began to look out for one as fast as she 
 
107 
 
 could. She got that with much ado, after 
 taking a great deal of necessary trouble for 
 one, and after searching all over a great 
 many towns for one, till at last she got to 
 Countib, and went into a house from fa- 
 tigue, to see if it was empty. She looked 
 all about the house and found it so. No- 
 body can think how glad she was that she 
 did find it, having taken so much trouble 
 before. As soon as ever she had searched 
 the house, she went to the parlour in great 
 sorrow, took place of a great-chair that was 
 there about, and began to reflect on her of- 
 fences before to her parents, whom she lost 
 when she was only a little after eleven years 
 old; and after she had reflected about a 
 quarter of an hour, she began to think of 
 one, that in a few moments was so deeply 
 impressed upon her mind, that she was al- 
 most ready to faint. She began, in a few 
 days, to think she chose to look out for a 
 husband, and presently set about it ; and 
 though this was with a great deal of trouble, 
 it was with less than her house. She took 
 
108 
 
 her husband with her to the house which she 
 had with so much trouble chosen for her- 
 self before. " Do you know, Sir/' says the 
 lady, " that a few days before this I have 
 been reflecting on my offences to my pa- 
 rents, whom I have long ago lost; and one 
 was so deeply impressed upon my mind, 
 that I was almost ready to faint/' " Ah!" 
 replied he, surprised. Some children were 
 presently born to them, at first two at a 
 time, and a few hours after that one more. 
 Their name was Malysbeg. 
 
 STORY III. 
 
 THE FATHER AND HIS SON. 
 
 A gentleman had a son, who was much 
 inclined to good manners. His father was 
 also inclined to teach him them, as he would 
 certainly have his friends treated with good 
 
109 
 
 manners. The son followed his good ex- 
 ample with the greatest readiness, and set 
 his play-fellows a good example, that did 
 not know so much as he : and his play-fel- 
 lows, of whom he had many, followed the 
 example. The son was brought up with 
 great care, treated well, and was endued^ 
 with great power to exercise good manners. 
 He also strove all he could, and exercised 
 all his power, that it might make him bet- 
 ter still. He was eleven years old, and his 
 mother he had lost when he was quite an 
 infant, who, if she had lived, would have 
 been glad to take the greatest care of him 
 that ever she could, she was so fond of 
 children. The child was also very much 
 put to sorrow at her loss, and expressed it 
 as much as he could ; and when their sor- 
 row was over, the son w r as very quiet and 
 good again. The son soon grew up to be 
 two years old; and on his birth-day; — Oh! 
 Papa, do you remember when I was so 
 sorry after Mama?" His papa replied, 
 " Yes, my dear, I do." " Then," said the 
 
110 
 
 son, " if I was old enough, I should have 
 liked to have written to her." " So should 
 I," replied his Papa. Their conversation 
 ended. 
 
 The fourth story is entitled, The Lady 
 and the Villager. 
 
 The fifth, The Man and the Cottager. 
 
 These two seem designed to inculcate 
 condescension in our behaviour towards 
 those of a station inferior to ourselves ; but 
 they contain nothing sufficiently marked to 
 render them subjects of curiosity. 
 
 The sixth story, The Cottager's Daugh- 
 ter and the Hospitable Gentlewoman, is, 
 to use the author's own words, " an example 
 of the Alles tomans' affection, civility and 
 attachment." It represents the visit of a 
 cottager's daughter, who was very poor, to 
 a Mrs. Benson; " and as the poor girl was 
 terribly cold, (as it was a cold day and sea- 
 son,) she went trembling to the fire at Mrs. 
 Benson's, who received her very hospitably.' 
 The remainder of the relation is occupied 
 
Ill 
 
 with the description of the benevolence ex- 
 ercised by the patroness, and the gratitude 
 of the dependent. 
 
 In the seventh, he seems to allude in 
 some degree to himself and his own employ- 
 ments. The latter he notices with an ob- 
 vious partiality, and dwells on the inter- 
 changes of kindness with unwearied plea- 
 sure. These were the favourite topics, on 
 which his mind delighted to dwell ; and he 
 indulges the expression of his feelings to 
 satiety. 
 
 STORY VII. 
 
 THE LITTLE BOY AND HIS FRIEND. 
 
 Once, a little boy happened to have a de- 
 sired errand over some fields: and in an 
 hour or two he arrived at " the beloved 
 house," as he used to call it, which he was 
 
in 
 
 sent to. There he behaved very civilly; 
 and his beloved friend, in a little time, per- 
 ceived his behaviour so applausive, that 
 she made a resolution in her heart (without 
 communicating it) to relate it to all her 
 friends, whom she saw. He bestowed his 
 errand upon the good family, for which all 
 the people present (except him) thanked 
 him. The little boy did not enter into any 
 conversation for some time: and, in a mi- 
 nute or two, a little girl came, gave a knock 
 at the house-door, and was admitted. She, 
 after pulling her things off, addressed the 
 family in the following kind manner: — 
 " What, my friends, have you got my bro- 
 ther here?" One of her friends replied, 
 " Yes, dear Ablyth, and we are overjoyed 
 to see him. He is now drawing at that 
 table." The little friendly Ablyth, pre- 
 sently, without giving her dear friend an 
 answer, went to the table, and looked over 
 her kind, well-intentioned brother for a few 
 moments, who was drawing from an origi- 
 nal, which was very interesting, and (as I 
 
113 
 
 may say) pretty. But the affectionate little 
 boy presently rose up, and solicited one of 
 his friends to permit him to leave off his 
 work for a time, that he might converse 
 with him. The good lady replied affec- 
 tionately, " Yes, dear Adoleo, if you 
 choose/' The little boy made a stop in his 
 speech before he went on with his conver* 
 sation, and his stop was so long, that one 
 of his friends was going to send the little 
 Adoleo back to the table; but before she 
 could speak, the little friendly young lad 
 presently said to his dear, beloved friend, 
 " Do you, Madam, know any thing of my 
 little imaginary kingdom, indeed I may say 
 country, for it has no provinces ?" His cor- 
 respondent presently replied, after reflect- 
 ing a moment; (as she had once seen a map 
 of it, but she did not recollect it:) " No, 
 my little Adoleo, not that I recollect/' The 
 little friendly boy replied, making use of 
 his good memory, " Oh! my friend, you 
 have once seen my map ; but I will bring it 
 you again, if you have a mind to see it." 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 The lady replied, recollecting when she saw 
 the map, " I have." The little boy, and 
 friendly Ablyth, presently went away. 
 There are several examples of the Alle- 
 stonians' attachment, affection, and civi- 
 lity, in this story, the same as there is in 
 the sixth. 
 
 From the prolixity, with which the slen- 
 der incidents of the preceding tale are re- 
 lated, and the frequent recurrence of the 
 same ideas, some apology may possibly be 
 expected for its insertion. These specimens 
 are all of them given with all their faults; 
 since it is conceived, that the latter are of a 
 nature to detract little from the general merit, 
 while they vouch for the fairness of the re^ 
 presentation. It has indeed by no means 
 been my wish, to lop off the excrescences 
 from the vital parts, or to place the defects 
 and weaknesses, which pervade the per- 
 formances of such a novice, beyond the 
 reach of critical inspection. Such an at- 
 
115 
 
 tempt might have carried the sensations of 
 the reader to that giddy height, to which 
 they are elevated on the perusal of a ro- 
 mance; it might have rendered a circum- 
 stance of surprise more surprising, or a sub- 
 ject of admiration more admirable, than it 
 really was : but it would have thwarted the 
 more rational design, of furnishing remark- 
 able and well authenticated facts, to prove, 
 from individual instances of early talent, the 
 natural strength and lofty destinies of the 
 human mind. Is it in philosophy or com- 
 mon sense to imagine, that superior powers 
 are kindled in a mortal frame, only to blaze 
 as the meteor of a moment here, and then 
 to be quenched in everlasting night ? If no- 
 thing is made in vain, the bud of genius 
 and virtue, when scorched by untimely 
 blasts, must open again in some more ge- 
 nial climate. All the skill of artificial tem- 
 perature will scarcely keep alive the rare 
 and delicate productions of the tropics, in 
 these our northern latitudes : but we do not 
 thence infer, that this debility is constitu- 
 
116 
 
 tional; or that they do not flourish un- 
 assisted, beneath the parental influence of 
 a nearer sun. 
 
 But these Allestonian speculations were 
 not confined to the invention of such little 
 stories. Their author had made a very 
 small progress in the difficult task of de- 
 vising a language, and compiling a dic- 
 tionary, for his invisible subjects. The in- 
 flections of his declinable nouns were de- 
 termined by the model of the Latin; but 
 their root was the product of his own whim, 
 and their rhythm tuned to his own ear. 
 As a specimen of this bold attempt, are sub- 
 Joined, 
 
 SOME ALLESTONIAN CHRISTIAN 
 NAMES OE WOMEN. 
 
 A. 
 
 Aria, (delight) Aria, ae. 
 Abrily, (beautiful) Abrila, ae. 
 
117 
 
 Agshitha, (joy) Agshitha, ae. 
 Ablyth, (gracious) Ablyth, indecl. 
 Absha, (governing the people) Absha, ae. 
 Ablaria, (honest) Ablaria, ae. 
 Ablary, (unassuming) Ablary, indecl. 
 Abishy, (good) Abishy, ind, 
 
 B. 
 
 Bevitha, (like Bevilona) Bevitha, ae. 
 Begshy, (certain) Begshy, indecl. 
 Bevilona, (modest) Bevilona, ae. 
 Bevith, (good) Bevith, i. 
 
 C. 
 
 Carolet, (noble) Carolet, indecl. 
 
 Carolia, (good) Carolia, ae. 
 
 Corintha, (descended from Corinth) Corin- 
 
 tha, ae. 
 Cebola, (valiant) Cebola, ae. 
 Citha, (capable of cyphering) Citha, ae. 
 Carolina, (good) Carolina, ae. 
 
118 
 
 D. 
 
 Darolia, (virtuous) Darolia, ae. 
 Parish, (good counsel) Darish, indecl. 
 
 E. 
 
 Earia, (comfort) Earia, ae. 
 
 F. 
 
 Farish, (famishing) Farish, indecl. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gadegunda, (flourishing) Gadegunda, 33. 
 Gadegund, (good) Gadegund, indecl. 
 
 The precise time at which these various 
 essays and prolusions were committed to 
 paper, is not in general ascertained; but 
 the following bears date, September, 1801. 
 
119 
 
 ALCANDER AND SEPTIMIUS. 
 
 A STORY. 
 
 Alcander and Septimius had long been 
 accustomed to be the friends of each other. 
 They, when one was thirty-two, and the 
 other thirty-four, had a great desire to live 
 together. So, according to their wish, Sep- 
 timius came to live with Alcander, and they 
 were fellow-students together; but Alcander 
 did rather teach Septimius, than Septimius 
 teach Alcander. They studied very well, 
 (that is, upon a very good subject;) and 
 afterwards remarked, and really found, that 
 it was very useful. They lived in Lalldab; 
 one all his life; but Septimius originally 
 came from Auth. 
 
 Alcander was the most eloquent speaker 
 in Lalldab; Septimius, the best author in 
 Auth. Septimius was most inclined to be 
 
120 
 
 good concerning generosity ; Alcander con- 
 cerning wisdom. Septimius, seeing a young 
 lady, fell in love with her himself, and that 
 rather affected his spirits : and when he re- 
 covered, he got into his own generous way 
 again; but unfortunately for him, poor man! 
 it happened that his generosity was too 
 great : for it presently brought him into an 
 illness, in which he died; and Alcander 
 followed him. Need the reason be told ? 
 
 Alcander, Septimius, Adoleo, and Ophe- 
 lius, appear to be the favourite characters 
 in the history of Allestone; the events of 
 their lives are recorded in no less than three 
 different tales, with considerable variation 
 of circumstances. One of the stories begins 
 thus: 
 
 " Once upon a time, in Allestone, there 
 happened to be rather a prevention in the 
 kindness of the Allestonians ; who were very 
 much concerned about it: and especially 
 three natives of the country, whose history 
 I now intend to relate, and all the events 
 
121 
 
 that occurred in their life, especially the 
 chief ones." 
 
 Adoleo seems in this place to be the 
 hero; and the first incident of the tale is 
 made to consist in his meeting with his bro- 
 ther Septimius, and his brother-in-law Ophe- 
 lius. 
 
 " Adoleo, at first, settled a plan of get- 
 ting a few pairs of companions to serve him, 
 and that he might serve them in the same 
 manner. But after thinking that he would 
 keep this plan, and impressing a resolution 
 on his heart to do it, he found it was all 
 wrong, and thought within himself, ' Ah ! 
 Fool that I was, to make a mistake ! — If I 
 think, 111 never do such a thing again. 
 Now, I do not know what other plan to 
 settle/ — Indeed, at first, he did not know 
 what to do; but, after considering a good 
 deal, found a suitable one at last; so he 
 went, and sought for two or three men, 
 whom he found : two of his relations (as one 
 was his brother, and the other his brother- 
 in-law,) whom he was very glad to see 
 
122 
 
 again. They had been a very long time 
 from him in St. Paulporis, which is amaz- 
 ingly, excessively far from the hospitable 
 dwelling in which he, his father, and mo- 
 ther lived. However, though he lived in 
 Annabole both when he was a boy and a 
 gentleman, he lived in a different house 
 when grown up. He lived afterwards in 
 happiness and ease with them ; but before, 
 he was rather unfortunate. He lost his 
 mother on his birth-day of eleven years old, 
 and his father a month or two after. They 
 all of them, however, always possessed sur- 
 prising affection for one another, as they 
 ought to do." 
 
 Their respective personal characters are 
 summarily given, in nearly the same terms 
 as those made use of in the former story. 
 With regard to the leading dispositions, seve- 
 rally ascribed to them, the only variety is in 
 that of Septimius, who is here represented 
 as distinguished by virtue and respect to 
 God. Their domestic habits are delineated 
 in the following manner. 
 
123 
 
 " Though Adoleo had no wife, he was 
 very happy with these relations of his. 
 Adoleo loved his two brothers so much, 
 that he thought he could not be any hap- 
 pier with a wife ; for they consoled him so 
 much, when he was in either perplexity or 
 trouble, that they served as one : and they 
 were both of them ready to give up all con- 
 sultation for their safety, that they might 
 busy themselves about his. Adoleo was 
 also as ready to do the same for them : . . . . 
 People may see by these events the love 
 which the Allestonians express for their 
 friends and relations." 
 
 As the history advances forwards, we 
 are given to understand, that " The kind- 
 ness of the manners of Allestonians was by 
 that time improved, as before. The natives 
 were very happy about that ; but still a lit- 
 tle dissatisfaction lurked in the minds of the 
 natives/' It was our young author's con- 
 stant practice, arising more from his own 
 sense of right than from constraint, to ac- 
 quiesce cheerfully in the decisions of his 
 
124 
 
 domestic rulers. This feeling of propriety 
 was easily applied to the doctrine of obedi- 
 ence to the laws of our country, which he 
 did not fail to inculcate and exemplify in 
 his visionary speculations ; and, like a true 
 moralist, he represents the exercise of the 
 virtue as terminating in that satisfaction of 
 mind, which constitutes its reward. 
 
 " Ophelius at first settled a plan of get- 
 ting into some concern about his household 
 affairs, or to choose out some trade or pro- 
 fession ; but at last the law directed that he 
 should be in neither of those professions he 
 had thought of. He was rather sorry for 
 that, but he at last condescended to the 
 law's direction: and afterwards he found 
 that he would be happier if he was nei- 
 ther." 
 
 Alcander is now introduced, to complete 
 the sociable party, and their peculiar cha- 
 racteristics are thus adjusted. " Septimius 
 was most inclined to be good concerning 
 humility and respect to the Divine Being ; 
 Alcander concerning generosity; Ophelius 
 
125 
 
 concerning wisdom, and Adoleo concerning 
 virtue. In short, they were all very good 
 in all ways ; but Alcander had the mildest 
 disposition. They were fellow-students to- 
 gether from that time. They all of them 
 afterwards settled to take a small, but nice 
 house, in Lalldab-street at Nimesby, where 
 they passed all the rest of their lives in hap- 
 piness and ease/' 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 
 ABLYTH AND LEUCIPIUS. 
 
 Once upon a time, in Allestone, the law 
 directed that there should be an improve- 
 ment, and that virtue should be still further 
 advanced. The Allestonian people conde- 
 scended to the law's direction: especially 
 two Allestonians, the one named Ablyth, 
 and the other Leucipius, who resided in a 
 pleasant house in Bryne, far from the part 
 
126 
 
 6f it in which their beloved relations (their 
 mother and father) lived. Theirs was also 
 a very pleasant residence, and Ablyth and 
 Leucipius were brother and sister to one 
 another. They did not marry according to 
 the law, but lived together. They, soon 
 after they had settled that residence, began 
 to relate their private histories ; Ablyth first, 
 and then, of course, her brother. They 
 were both of them highly entertained by 
 one another's histories, and began to give 
 cordial thanks for them. It was not long 
 after, that the generally happy Ablyth fell 
 into an uncommon Allestonian consump- 
 tion, or illness of the lungs, called the Clun- 
 gar. That hindered her business certainly; 
 but during her illness, Leucipius watched 
 her most tenderly; and as he had much 
 knowledge of physic, he cured her in a few 
 days. If he had not had so much know- 
 ledge of physic as he had, she would have 
 been confined in bed a month or two. She, 
 as soon as she had recovered her spirits 
 enough to do so, made an opportunity of 
 
127 
 
 going to see her father and mother, who 
 had gone to another residence in Countib, 
 -while she was taken ill. Leucipius very 
 willingly accompanied her, having also a 
 desire to see his dear father and mother. 
 Ablyth then related her illness 
 
 In addition to these stories, he made 
 several incoherent attempts at dramatic 
 composition. He also began a comic 
 opera, to which he gave the title of The 
 Entertaining Assembly, and noted down 
 the supposed airs in musical characters, 
 with a treble and bass. One of the can- 
 zonets runs in the following strain; and ri- 
 dicules happily, without intending it, the 
 soft and silly sentiments of our theatrical 
 lyrics. The musical reader will be gratified 
 by the information, that the time marked is 
 " Andante Largo/' 
 
128 
 
 I wander till I find my love, 
 
 And oh! she looks for me. — Repeated. 
 1 cannot think — Diminuendo. 
 I cannot think where she does go ;— 
 
 Tho' oh! she looks for me: — id time Adagio. 
 Till I find her, I roam about, — Allegro. 
 
 Oh ! till I find my love ! Concluding Adagio and 
 
 Pianissimo. 
 
 On the back of this canzonet, is the fol- 
 lowing notice, in very beautiful printing 
 characters : 
 
 WHAT THE MAKER OF THE MUSIC MEANS. 
 
 The thing on the other side is only ima- 
 ginary music, made by Thomas Williams 
 Malkin, who does not understand real 
 music. 
 
 At the end of the book, containing the 
 history of Allestone, is the following table 
 of 
 
129 
 
 REMARKABLE EVENTS. 
 
 Treaty t of Lalldab and Nimesby, A.D. 11. 
 The famous and remarkable invention of 
 
 building great bridges, such as Alsbey 
 
 Bridge, &c. 7 Jan. 14. 
 Adoleo Oldkick elects Unther, Bishop of 
 
 Auth, 7 Feb. 1. 
 Allestone burnt down, 18 Nov. 16. 
 Some Allestonians lost, and burnt in the fire, 
 
 others take refuge, 7 Dec. 2. 
 Allestone built up, 8 Mar. 17- 
 Lord Chancellor and King Adoleo the Third, 
 
 and Queen Othalia the Sixteenth, died, 
 
 3 Jan. 16*. 
 Lalldab and Nimesby Castle built, Jan. 60. 
 Queen Othalia the Third proclaimed the 
 
 Lord Chancellor to improve Allestone, 
 
 16 Feb. and Jan. 28. 
 King Adoleo the Fourth born, 13th June200. 
 
 After this follows the plan of " An Al- 
 manack of the Allestonian year 3" 
 
130 
 
 Though many of these names and events 
 may appear too childish for the public eye, 
 they are preserved with a view of shewing, 
 how he enlisted every circumstance into his 
 service, and copied the style and manner of 
 its application. If I may be allowed to 
 hazard an opinion, where my partiality and 
 my feelings are so nearly concerned, I should 
 say that the faculties of comparison and 
 judgment were to the full as conspicuous in 
 these devices, as imagination. In truth, 
 the fictitious scenes which he has drawn, 
 are borrowed principally from, the natural 
 workings of an ingenuous mind. They for 
 the most part represent either the reality or 
 the resemblance of what had happened, or 
 might have happened to himself; the inci- 
 dents being nearly confined to such parti- 
 culars, as are connected either with the ac- 
 quisition of juvenile knowledge, or the ex- 
 pression of benevolence and innocent affec- 
 tions. But when he attempts a sketch of 
 general history, he convinces us how much 
 he had read, and how well he understood 
 
131 
 
 it. Political treaties, the discovery or im- 
 provement of arts, maxims of government 
 and rules of life, are all mentioned in ap- 
 propriate terms, collected from books, and 
 treasured up in a retentive memory. He 
 was continually upon the stretch, to over- 
 take those who had gone before him ; and 
 though his powers were unequal to the con- 
 test, they were invigorated and kept in 
 breath by the exercise of the chace. On 
 the whole, when I reflect, how serious an 
 attention I have endeavoured to attract, to 
 the character and performances of a child, 
 who never completed his seventh year, I 
 tremble at my own temerity; but when I 
 compare his efforts with those of other chil- 
 dren, however promising they may be ac- 
 counted, so unquestionable a superiority 
 seems to warrant the presumption, and al- 
 most to impose the statement of the pre- 
 ceding circumstances, as an act of duty. 
 The taste for personal anecdote, and for 
 the exposure of domestic privacy, has of 
 late years been grossly fed ; and even where 
 
132 
 
 the exhibition of individual life is not mis- 
 placed, it is difficult to arrange it with a 
 proper attention to decorum. Yet were the 
 fear of censure to deter those who, upon the 
 best exercise of their discretion, think they 
 have high instances of unknown merit to 
 communicate, the world would lose many 
 an instructive example, so that the page 
 of biography must be left far too scanty, 
 to supply materials for our researches into 
 the economy of nature, or the condition 
 of human life. 
 
 I have now performed the office of giv- 
 ing a full, and perhaps too detailed an ac- 
 count, both of this child's promise and per- 
 formance, during his short life. It is time 
 to enter on the more painful task, of relating 
 the leading particulars, which occurred in 
 the course of his last illness. 
 
 During the whole summer, up to the 
 first of July, 1802, he had been in perfect 
 health; and had been considered, by those 
 who saw him but occasionally, and were 
 therefore likely to make more accurate ob- 
 
133 
 
 serration than ourselves, as gaining strength 
 more than proportioned to his growth. On 
 that day, he complained of an uneasy sen- 
 sation in his throat, and appeared to be ra- 
 ther languid. Immediate advice was called 
 in; but his indisposition at that time was 
 apparently so trifling, as to have created 
 little alarm in our minds. On the following 
 morning, he had a shivering fit; and it was 
 evident that his disorder had increased. Still 
 he came down stairs as usual, and employ- 
 ed himself in his accustomed manner, in 
 writing, reading, drawing, and other of those 
 amusements, which had hitherto given scope 
 to his faculties, and were now of sufficient 
 interest, to beguile the sense of bodily infir- 
 mity by mental occupation. 
 
 On the morning of the third, he was so 
 much worse, as to be obliged to remain in 
 his bed, which he never quitted afterwards. 
 His bowels became extremely tense ; and 
 his fever was now increased to a consider- 
 able height. He frequently wandered, and 
 became occasionally confused and delirious 
 
134 
 
 in the course of the following week. Yet it 
 was never difficult for those, who were 
 about him, to bring back his recollection: 
 and on the recurrence of his consciousness, 
 he frequently said, " I believe I have been 
 dreaming/' 
 
 It had been the decided opinion of Mr. 
 Toulmin, who attended him from the first, 
 that the disorder was altogether in the 
 bowels. On Wednesday the seventh of 
 July, Dr. Lister came to see him. With 
 an entire approbation of the measures 
 hitherto taken, he expressed a considerable 
 degree of hope, that the patient might ul- 
 timately recover, since there were at the pe- 
 riod in question no fatal symptoms. Dr. Lis- 
 ter, however, as well as Mr. Toulmin, re- 
 presented the case as highly serious ; and 
 neither encouraged us to look forward to a 
 speedy recovery, nor to rely with any con- 
 fidence on a favourable event. He directed 
 us to persevere in the use of frequent fo-* 
 mentations to the bowels, which had been 
 applied almost from the beginning of the 
 
135 
 
 complaint. I am the more minute in de- 
 tailing his early treatment, in consequence 
 of a circumstance, hereafter to be men- 
 tioned. 
 
 Towards the latter end of the week, and 
 on Sunday and Monday, the eleventh and 
 twelfth, we flattered ourselves that he was 
 gaining ground. His pulse was less fre- 
 quent; his mind became perfectly com- 
 posed, and the reasons for indulging the 
 expectation of his approaching conva- 
 lescence, appeared gradually to gain force 
 and probability. The natural propensity 
 to cherish pleasing illusions, especially in 
 the uncertain prospect of life or death, more 
 frequently gives birth to the aggravated dis- 
 appointment of the inevitable close, than 
 any real change in the condition of the 
 sufferer. But in the present case, there was 
 a decisive and evident amendment, though 
 its continuance was but for a few days. 
 
 On Thursday, the fifteenth, he became 
 much worse; and complained of great pain 
 in his left arm, which afterwards extended 
 
136 
 • 
 
 to his legs. The state of his bowels became, 
 so alarming, that on Sunday the eighteenth, 
 it was judged necessary to apply a blister, 
 with a view of allaying internal inflamma- 
 tion, supposed to have existed from an 
 early stage of the disorder. There had in- 
 deed been some grounds for supposing, that 
 it was abated by more gentle methods ; but 
 it seemed to recur with additional violence, 
 and to require the most active practice to 
 keep it under, which the constitution and 
 tender age of the patient would admit. In 
 consequence of this application, aided by a 
 very judicious and delicate medical treat- 
 ment in other respects, the original disease, 
 by the end of the week, was to all appear- 
 ance in a course of being essentially relieved. 
 But new evils were on the point of present- 
 ing themselves ; for on Friday the twenty- 
 third, we first perceived his legs, though the 
 pain in them was much less than it had 
 been, beginning to swell. This aggravation 
 of his sufferings was continually on the in- 
 crease; and by Sunday the twenty-fifth, it 
 
137 
 
 had arrived at a most melancholy height. 
 From his hips downward, he became so un- 
 wieldy from dropsy, that his position could 
 not be changed but with the utmost incon- 
 venience and fatigue to himself. On Mon- 
 day, the body as well as limbs became very 
 much swollen; and his respiration distress- 
 fully short and difficult. On Tuesday the 
 twenty-seventh, there appeared an ulcer on 
 the right hip, arising from pressure during 
 his long confinement. This added greatly to 
 his pain, and put his patience more severe- 
 ly to the test, than any former accident. 
 On Wednesday, from the same cause, an- 
 other broke out, similarly situated on the 
 left hip. A day of such severe trial as this 
 took from us all desire of making harassing 
 experiments towards the resuscitation of the 
 vital powers, and left no alternative but to 
 contribute, by the offices of assiduity and 
 consolation, to his composed and cheerful 
 endurance of what was no longer to be 
 warded off. In this respect, our wishes 
 were not frustrated; for we had no reason 
 
138 
 
 to believe, that he experienced any very 
 considerable uneasiness after the evening of 
 Wednesday. 
 
 On Thursday, the twenty-ninth, he made 
 little or no complaint; but appeared to be 
 much weaker, and gradually to sink under 
 the weight of his accumulated ills. He had 
 from this time those frequent and profuse 
 cold dews, the certain fore-runners of disso- 
 lution, succeeded by a deadly paleness, 
 which was never again lighted up even by a 
 transient glow of colour. 
 
 On Saturday, the thirty-first of July, at 
 ten in the morning, his medical friends saw 
 him, and conversed with him, as he with 
 them, after their usual manner. He took 
 some nourishment in their presence; and 
 though they had for many days prepared 
 our minds for a fatal termination, they did 
 not, on this their last visit, apprehend his 
 release to be so near. His mind still re- 
 mained unclouded and composed ; while his 
 spirits supported him under his increasing 
 weakness, and in the exhausted state of his 
 
139 
 
 corporeal powers. The principle of life 
 seemed still, if I may so express myself, to 
 struggle for the mastery, under the banner 
 of a vigorous intellect and a happy organi- 
 zation. The field was indeed lost, but the 
 power, which had hitherto supported the 
 conflict, maintained its self-possession in 
 the crisis of defeat. 
 
 Soon after eleven o'clock, an evident 
 alteration took place. The languor and de- 
 bility increased. His breathing became 
 much more difficult than it had ever been ; 
 and his voice, which through his illness had 
 been strong and clear, began to falter. 
 Under this serious change of circumstances, 
 when the hand of death was even now upon 
 him, he remained firm and collected, with- 
 out the slightest indication of displeasure or 
 alarm. He spoke at intervals, deliberately 
 and coherently, with his accustomed feli- 
 city of expression, and with his usual kind- 
 ness to those who were round his bed, till 
 he could no longer utter a sound. In a few 
 minutes after he had ceased to articulate, 
 
140 
 
 and a little before twelve o'clock, he sunk 
 in the arms of his mother without a struggle 
 or a groan. There was no expression of 
 agony upon his features. His frame was 
 neither agitated by convulsion, nor his fa- 
 culties stupified by the drowsy tendency of 
 his dropsical affection. It may indeed be 
 affirmed, without danger of a paradoxical 
 deviation from the sobriety of truth, that he 
 excited more admiration under circum- 
 stances, from which human nature is apt 
 to revolt, than had fallen to his share in the 
 full career of mental and bodily improve- 
 ment. He displayed the faculty of ac- 
 quiring knowledge in health, and that of 
 using it in sickness. 
 
 It is much to be lamented, that powers 
 like his, resembling so nearly in their early 
 promise, whatever has delighted and im- 
 proved mankind in the works of mature 
 genius, could never be rendered available 
 to the general purposes of society. The ar- 
 gument from such a dispensation, for a fu- 
 ture state of existence, has been already 
 touched upon. Yet the ways of Providence, 
 
141 
 
 in rendering; desert sufficient to its own re- 
 tribution in this life, were vindicated even 
 in him, child as he was. The period during 
 which he enjoyed the benefit of a sound 
 body and animal spirits, was continually 
 occupied in laying up mental treasures. 
 The time was indeed short; but it lasted 
 long enough to teach him the value of his 
 own improvement, in the support it afford- 
 ed him under the pressure of a severe ill- 
 ness, which he bore with exemplary pa- 
 tience and fortitude. Neither, in addition 
 to this personal advantage, are we to over- 
 look the record of unsophisticated philo- 
 sophy, early attained and excellently ap- 
 plied, in so touching an instance of a mind, 
 superior to the heaviest inflictions of pain. 
 To compare his capacity of endurance with 
 that of an adult under similar circumstances, 
 would be extravagant; because the child 
 has only to contend with his actual suffer- 
 ings: the adult is attacked at once by the 
 anxiety of the present, by the apprehension 
 of the future, and often by the remorse of 
 
142 
 
 the past. But however innocence and un- 
 consciousness might detract from what we 
 may call the moral fortitude of the present 
 case, the breaking up of nature subjected 
 the patient to many a languid and painful 
 hour. When these were heaviest upon him, 
 the assiduities of his attendants must have 
 been unavailing, had he not known how to 
 convert his former acquisitions to their so- 
 lace. During the whole course of his dis- 
 order, his spirits were cheerful, and his un- 
 derstanding vigorous. He for the most part 
 beguiled his own sense of weariness by the 
 recollection of what he had formerly seen, 
 done, or read. Little points of interest or 
 information, which might be supposed to 
 have impressed his mind with a transient 
 sentiment, or to have struck accidentally 
 in unison with the innate pleasure of know— 
 ledge, were equally present to his reflective 
 powers, as when they first attracted his 
 notice. 
 
 He frequently complained of pain, par- 
 ticularly during the dressing of his blister^ 
 
143 
 
 and his other wounds towards the close of 
 his illness. His sensations at these times 
 were frequently most acute. Yet, in the 
 whole course of his affliction, he submitted 
 patiently to whatever was judged expedient 
 to be done for him. He took every medi- 
 cine prescribed for him without a murmur. 
 When he was reduced to such a state of 
 weakness, as to be unable to move himself, 
 or to turn in his bed without assistance, he 
 would ask for help with a composure and 
 complacency, which proved that he felt no 
 disposition to repine. Peevishness and dis- 
 content are in some measure the accredited 
 concomitants of sickness; so that a philo- 
 sopher in health and manhood is often a 
 child in the decay of old age. In the pre- 
 sent case, those, whose office calls upon 
 them to watch the effects of debility and 
 approaching dissolution, under every variety 
 of circumstances, will corroborate the suspi- 
 cious testimony of a parent, and bear wit- 
 ness to the uniform gentleness, and tractable 
 resignation of their patient. 
 
144 
 
 "When the illness of any friend had led 
 us to speak generally on the subject, Ave 
 had been accustomed to represent it as an 
 occurrence, to which we must all, at some 
 time or other, look forward, as likely to 
 happen to ourselves. It had therefore been 
 presented to his contemplation, as an al- 
 most unavoidable incident in the drama of 
 life, to be supported Avith dignit} 7 , as far as 
 might be possible, by the actor, and to be 
 viewed by the spectator with calmness. In 
 conformity with these impressions, too con- 
 genial with the character of his mind to be 
 effaced from it, he met his sufferings. But 
 the idea of death, which seldom torments 
 childhood by anticipation, did not seem to 
 enter his thoughts, or to interfere with his 
 more auspicious topics of reflection. On 
 the contrary, he talked of his recovery with 
 pleasure and confidence. When he had 
 been ill for three weeks, as his mother was 
 sitting by his bed-side, he enquired, " Do 
 you think my illness is half over, Mama ?" 
 She answered, that she hoped it was much 
 
145 
 
 more than half over; and asked him if he 
 thought it had been very long. He replied, 
 " No : not very long." „ 
 
 He was always happy when his mother 
 was attending on him. Had he given way 
 to the indulgence of a morbid waywardness, 
 he would scarcely for a moment have dis- 
 pensed with her absence. But though anxi- 
 ous to have her about him as much as pos- 
 sible, he was fully aware that she could not 
 remain within his reach at night, on account 
 of his little brother, who was at the breast. 
 When she had staid as late as she could 
 without inconvenience, she was accustomed 
 to ask if he wished her to continue longer, 
 or to perform any additional office for him. 
 The general language of his reply was sim- 
 ply, with a smile, " No, Mama! But I 
 shall be glad when it is morning, that you 
 may come to me again ! Good night, Ma- 
 ma." When it is considered, that he slept 
 but little, and even then by unquiet and in- 
 terrupted snatches, so that his nights were 
 restless and uneasy, the merit of so ready 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 and good tempered a sacrifice to reason and 
 propriety was far from trifling. He once 
 said, during the latter part of his illness, 
 " I wonder when the time will come, for 
 me to have a settled sleep all through the 
 night again." 
 
 On Saturday, the third of July, which 
 was the first day of his being confined to 
 his bed, his mother was in the morning ob- 
 liged to be rather longer absent from him, 
 than she could have wished, owing to some 
 little family concerns, which required her 
 attention. On the following morning, he 
 said, " Mama, I am glad it is Sunday to- 
 day." On being asked, Why so? He re- 
 plied, " Because, Mama, I remember that 
 in the fourth commandment, we are told 
 that Sunday is to be observed as a day of 
 rest; and I therefore suppose you will have 
 more leisure to stay with me to-day than 
 you had yesterday." 
 
 If at any time a word occurred to his 
 recollection, of which he did not know the 
 precise import, he always desired to have 
 
147 
 
 it explained. He was indeed to the full as 
 eager after information on any subject, hap- 
 pening at the moment to engage his thoughts, 
 as he had shewn himself at any former pe- 
 riod. He one day asked the meaning of 
 the word facetious. When an explanation 
 had been given him, his mother asked him 
 if he could tell her to what part of speech 
 it was to be referred? He immediately re- 
 plied, " I know from your explanation of 
 it, Mama, that it must be a noun adjec- 
 tive." 
 
 On another occasion, without .being at 
 all led to the subject by any previous intro- 
 duction of the topic, he said, " There is a 
 word in the Prayer Book, which I do not 
 understand. It is in the Litany. Privy 
 Conspiracy ! What does that mean ?" 
 
 In this manner did he amuse himself, 
 and ward off the sense of his own situation, 
 during the wearisome hours of his lingering 
 illness. His questions and remarks served 
 occasionally to enliven the melancholy of 
 his friends, till the recurrence of the con- 
 
148 
 
 viction, that the present bond of union was 
 on the point of being rent asunder, again 
 brought their thoughts to their original tenor 
 of regret and grief. 
 
 He frequently desired to have books at 
 his bed-side, which he would request his 
 mother to read to him. In his intervals of 
 comparative ease, he would take pleasure in 
 turning them over for himself. As a singular 
 instance of technical recollection, especially 
 in so young a child, the following circum- 
 stance may be mentioned. When he wish- 
 ed to hear any thing which he had before 
 read, he could not only tell in what book 
 to find it, but could generally fix on the 
 number of the page, where the particular 
 passage occurred. His dissected maps, 
 from which he had very early acquired his 
 knowledge of geography, afforded him plea- 
 sure and interest to the last. He had some 
 counties of England in his hands, reading 
 the names of the towns in them, within half 
 an hour of his dissolution. 
 
 We could not help considering it as a 
 
149 
 
 remarkable result of his illness, that from 
 its earliest period, he ceased to talk of the 
 imaginary country, which had hitherto been 
 so copious a source of amusement to him. 
 He named it only once, and then transient- 
 ly, and as if by accident. It was indeed at 
 a moment of considerable estrangement, 
 when he had been speaking incoherently of 
 King James. On being asked, Whether it 
 was King James of England whom he 
 meant? He answered, " No! It was only a 
 King James of his own imaginary country/' 
 I had, with the partiality of a father, 
 for a time persuaded myself, that this 
 forbearance arose from a consciousness 
 of the pernicious effect, which the in- 
 dulgence of wild and visionary ideas 
 might have produced upon his brain. 
 Consistent with this view of the case, was 
 the mention of it, only when the gene- 
 ral predominance of reason over his mind 
 was suspended. It was natural enough to 
 be led into this error by considering, that 
 his memory was still retentive of every 
 
150 
 
 other preceding impression, of which vari- 
 ous instances have just been given. It 
 seemed therefore as if he was aware, ho\v 
 strong was the necessity of accommodating 
 his thoughts, as well as his outward treat- 
 ment, to the peculiar situation in which he 
 stood. But cooler reflection has at length 
 convinced me, that I was misled in ascrib- 
 ing a casual circumstance to a high and 
 extraordinary cause. We ourselves dread* 
 ed the recurrence of the topic, lest the reins 
 should be loosened to every fantastic ex- 
 cursion of a disordered temperament. His 
 mind therefore, when capable of entertain- 
 ing them, was supplied with other specu- 
 lations ; and as the sports of fancy, when 
 in the fulness of her health and vigour, had 
 never assumed an undue or dangerous in- 
 fluence, they now probably subsided and 
 became sober of themselves. 
 
 At the time of his illness, his little bro- 
 ther Frederic was about half a year old. 
 From the hour of this child's birth, Thomas, 
 as may be seen by some of the foregoing 
 
151 
 
 letters, watched his progress with more than 
 a brother's pleasure. He very frequently 
 used to speak of the delight he should ex- 
 perience in instructing " the nice little Fre- 
 deric," when he should be old enough to 
 be taught. Though it might have been 
 expected, that the shattered condition of 
 his nervous system, alternately irritable and 
 languid, would have rendered him indif- 
 ferent about those, whom it was not neces- 
 sary for him to see, he enquired after both 
 his brothers every day, with his usual in- 
 terest and kindness. He was always anxi- 
 ous to know how Benjamin employed him- 
 self, and frequently desirous of having his 
 company. Frederic was brought to him 
 every day at his particular request. He 
 would then look at him, and speak to him, 
 with the most gentle voice and affectionate 
 countenance. Once towards the close of 
 his illness, he repeated " Pretty Frederic" 
 so frequently, and talked to him so much, 
 that his mother was fearful, lest he should 
 exhaust his spirits. She therefore cautioned 
 
152 
 
 him, not to fatigue himself by too great ex- 
 ertion. He replied, " I like to talk to him, 
 Mama, because I think the continuation 
 of my voice makes him continue to look at 
 me ; — and I find this to be one of the times, 
 when Frederic has his best looks/' 
 
 On the evening before he died, both his 
 brothers were brought to him. After talk- 
 ing a little while very cheerfully, he ex- 
 pressed a wish that Benjamin might be kept 
 to drink tea in the room with him. At the 
 same time he added, " You had better, 
 Benjamin, go and amuse yourself till tea- 
 time with the box of letters, and spell sen- 
 tences as we used to do together/' While 
 his mother was standing at the foot of the 
 bed, with Frederic in her arms, he looked 
 at him with the utmost complacency, with- 
 out taking off his eye from him for a consi- 
 derable time. Not a word was uttered. It 
 seemed, however, as if he thought by his 
 mothers manner, that she expected him to 
 address his brother in his customary tone of 
 affection. After two or three efforts to gra- 
 
153 
 
 tifj her, which seemed to distress him, he 
 at last succeeded, and called " Frederic," for 
 the last time. He had never before this mo- 
 ment betrayed the slightest indication, that 
 his organs of speech were at all impaired. 
 Neither did lie afterwards in the least la- 
 bour in his utterance, till within the last 
 hour of his life : but he seemed to find the 
 succession of sounds in the word Frederic 
 rather difficult to articulate, and would not 
 repeat an attempt, in which he had nearly 
 failed. 
 
 A very short time before he was seized 
 with his fatal illness, a remarkable circum- 
 stance occurred. Minds, prone to super- 
 stition, are apt to look back upon the omen 
 after the event. Such a retrospect might 
 have impelled many to construe it into a 
 warning, suggested by the intervention of a 
 preternatural influence on his spirit. View- 
 ed without reference to any such agency, it 
 still deserves notice ; but only so far as it 
 tends to prove, how early and how deeply 
 the belief of immortality had taken root 
 
154 
 
 among his intellectual convictions, and its 
 fairest hopes engrafted themselves on his 
 imagination. 
 
 His mother had been conversing with 
 him on the happiness and advantage of a 
 virtuous life, as connected with the prospect 
 of a world to come. Thomas, after having 
 interchanged many remarks on the subject, 
 with a strong expression of interest, and in 
 a high tone of animation, exclaimed, " Do 
 you know, Mama, that what we have been 
 talking of makes me almost wish not to live 
 long, that I may have the pleasure of 
 mounting !" He spoke this with unusual 
 energy, and a countenance strongly lighted 
 up : with a marked emphasis in the conclu- 
 sion, raising his hand above his head, and 
 following it with uplifted eyes. He seemed 
 for the moment to be raised to a high pitch 
 of enthusiasm. 
 
 On Sunday, the first of August, the day 
 after he expired, a medical gentleman of 
 considerable experience from his standing in 
 the profession, and formerly in habits of 
 
155 
 
 intimacy with some part of our family, paid 
 us a visit of enquiry and condolence. In 
 the course of conversation, this gentleman 
 threw out some distant hints of doubts, 
 which he entertained, as to the nature of 
 the disease. On being urged to explain 
 more fully what he had but covertly insi- 
 nuated, he gave us to understand it as his 
 opinion, that the ostensible complaints were 
 altogether symptomatic, and that the pres- 
 sure of water on the brain was the real cause 
 of our child's death. Besides stating several 
 technical reasons, too profound for our ig- 
 norance to appreciate, he professed to con- 
 sider the acknowledged largeness of the 
 head, and even the high talent, in which so 
 many had delighted, as strongly corrobo- 
 rating his own exposition of the case. There 
 was perhaps nothing else within the limits 
 of human ingenuity, which could have add- 
 ed the pang of self-reproach to the natural 
 depression of melancholy. Were we to 
 form our systems on the credibility of such 
 suggestions, who would kill the darling of 
 
156 
 
 his heart with knowledge ? The apprehensive 
 nature of parents must shudder at the first 
 scintillations of common sense; and fancy 
 death to lie in ambush behind every show 
 of intelligence, the grave to spring a mine 
 under the feet of genius. The skill of edu- 
 cation would but betray its victims into the 
 clutches of the universal enemy : the pen of 
 the writer would become a poisoned arrow; 
 the voice of the teacher would only be heard 
 to sing a dirge over the extinction of his 
 species. But besides the revolting tendency 
 of the observation, it was entirely new and 
 unexpected. Throughout the progress of 
 the disorder, the head in particular had ap- 
 peared to be perfectly free. The delirium, 
 to which he was occasionally subject, may 
 perhaps be thought to invalidate this asser- 
 tion: but the effect was only temporary, and 
 was therefore never considered as indicating 
 the seat of the complaint. His faculties 
 have already been shewn to have retained 
 their wonted vigour and clearness to the 
 last, and only to have been suspended for 
 
.157 
 
 a short time, during the paroxysms of pain, 
 or a more than ordinary height of fever. 
 That his head was large and of a remark- 
 able form, must have been obvious to the 
 most indifferent examiner. Yet, so far from 
 giving rise to gloomy forebodings, its shape, 
 and character had often been admired by 
 artists, and especially by our late friend 
 Mr. Banks, as tallying exactly with the most 
 approved models, and agreeing with the 
 established principles of beauty. Now the 
 idea of beauty in the human frame can 
 never be disjoined, at least not justly, from 
 that of healthy and perfect conformation ; 
 so that the taste of the designer must stand 
 corrected by the closer investigations of 
 the anatomist. We had the testimony of 
 both. 
 
 Our confidence in the hands, to which 
 we had committed so near an interest, was 
 great ; nor was our faith easily to be shaken. 
 But it was impossible for any of the parties 
 concerned to be satisfied without a further 
 enquiry. Happily for all, the doubt was 
 
158 
 
 proposed, before it was too late to examine 
 its foundation. For this purpose, Mr. Cline, 
 Dr. Lister, Dr. Pett, Mr. Toulmin, and Mr. 
 Smith, met on Tuesday the third of August, 
 when Mr. Cline opened the head. It was 
 to us an unspeakable relief, to find it ascer- 
 tained, that there was not the most slender 
 ground for the opinion advanced. The 
 skull was capacious and full ; and the brain 
 unusually large. It appeared to be in the 
 most healthy state, and perfect in all its 
 parts. Neither was there any where about 
 the head the least visible defect, to justify 
 the suspicion of disease. Its internal struc- 
 ture, when examined, was found to cor- 
 respond most justly with the beauty of its 
 exterior form. 
 
 The body was afterwards opened. The 
 appearances were such, as to convince all 
 present, that the complaint was fully un- 
 derstood from the first. The interest of our 
 medical friends in their success we had all 
 along experienced to have been anxious and 
 unremitting: we had now the pleasure of 
 
359 
 
 finding their skill and judgment confirmed. 
 The state of the intestines was precisely as 
 Dr. Lister and Mr. Toulmin had expected 
 and described. There had been a high de- 
 gree of inflammation, and parts of them 
 were mortified. The liver, kidneys, and 
 spleen, were perfectly sound. The lungs 
 were found not to have been in the least 
 degree affected; and the general organiza- 
 tion was so complete, as to have given the 
 fairest promise of life and health. 
 
 I am sensible, that if I professed to write 
 as a physiologist, this last remark would be 
 open to controversy. The causes, which 
 operate to the decay of the human frame, 
 often lie beyond the reach of ocular inspec- 
 tion, and even of probable inference. It 
 were presumptuous therefore, in any case, 
 to repose with confidence on the outward 
 tokens of longevity. The bulk of the giant 
 is equally assailable with the diminutive 
 stature of the dwarf: the shrub bends to 
 the blast, which uproots the oak. High 
 health sucks the contagion into its vitals, 
 
160 
 
 which morbid debility either escapes, or 
 entertains in a mitigated and supportable 
 degree. Yet are we justified, when recon- 
 ciling ourselves to our lot as men, rather 
 than arguing as philosophers, in fostering 
 those expectations, not merely which are in 
 their own nature proveable, but which are 
 not actually disproved by any positive evi- 
 dence. It is in this loose and popular sense 
 only, that I mean to hazard the remark in 
 question. At all events, it has been among 
 our most available consolations to believe, 
 that the cause of our calamity was neither 
 inherited, nor derived from any constitu- 
 tional defect. Still more is it essential to 
 our peace of mind to be convinced, that it 
 was not brought on by any injudicious ef- 
 forts of ours, to push his intellectual am- 
 bition beyond the limits of his physical 
 strength. To what then do we attribute it? 
 With all becoming diffidence, on a subject 
 so enveloped and mysterious as that of life 
 or death, we venture to place it among those 
 accidents in the system, to which the old 
 
161 
 
 and young, the healthy and infirm, are 
 without exemption and alike exposed. Had 
 this fatal accident not occurred, with so 
 happy a temperament of mind and consti- 
 tution, with a body robust and well pro- 
 portioned, there was, up to the time of 
 almost his only illness, at least the usual 
 probability of his arriving at manhood. 
 What that manhood might have been, it is 
 now fruitless to conjecture, and would per- 
 haps be only painful to know, were the 
 knowledge of what we have lost within our 
 grasp. At the same time, we may unpre- 
 sumingly ground on our experience of his 
 infancy the belief, that whether he had 
 devoted his studies, in after-life, to the fine 
 arts, to elegant literature, or to the disco- 
 very and exemplification of the higher truths 
 and severer sciences, he might have done 
 some honour to his age and country ; not 
 by ranking high among its artificial orders, 
 but by useful labours, and by the contri- 
 butions of patriotism and talent to the ge- 
 
 M 
 
362 
 
 neral accumulation of whatever is thought 
 best, wisest, and worthiest, in the social 
 state of man. Intercepted in this career, 
 he now rests in peace. His star has faded 
 from among the glories of this world: yet 
 we believe that he still must occupy his 
 sphere of usefulness in the system of cre- 
 ation, and pay homage to that Being who 
 brought him out of nothing, but who will 
 not reduce the lowest of his accountable 
 creatures to that from which they came. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The following letters, &c. have been found, 
 too late to be inserted in their proper 
 places. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, 
 
 But, the praise of God is 
 
 great love. Well ! I should like to go to 
 Heaven very much. Then, you know, I 
 should see my little sister Mary, and my 
 little brother John, that are dead. So, they 
 go to be buried ! I think it is a very nice 
 thing to go to heaven ! Well ! And then we 
 should see our heavenly Father, and our 
 Saviour. He has got a light round his head ; 
 our Saviour has ! . . . . When we go, we shall 
 see Judas, who brought the soldiers to seize 
 our Saviour, and put him to death : and so 
 
166 
 
 he went. There was St. Bartholomew, St. 
 John, St. Peter, St. Matthew : but these 
 were all the Saints that I know of. 
 
 T. W. M. 
 
 October 24, 17gg. 
 
 MY DEAR MISS 
 
 I am very much obliged to you 
 for the book of quadrupeds and of birds. 
 I drew two or three sea eagles; and in the 
 original found the sea eagle very beautifully 
 marked. The lanner is somewhat less than 
 the buzzard. The quill feathers of the lan- 
 ner are dusky. I now learn Latin, as I 
 believe you know : and I have got pretty 
 far through my exercise book. The length 
 of the ringtail is twenty inches: its claws 
 are black. Grandfather has a very large 
 garden ; and in summer he had some of the 
 flower called rose-campion; and some roses: 
 
167 
 
 but they are all gone.— So now he has no 
 flowers at all 
 
 T. W. MALKIN. 
 
 Dec. 14, 1800. 
 
 Hackney, Sunday, Dec. 21, 1800. 
 MY DEAREST MRS. P , 
 
 I am so much concerned to you, 
 I should often like to see you. As for Mrs. 
 B , I shall think she must be very mi- 
 serable, because Mr. B— — is dead : so 
 now her little boy has no father, or nobody 
 to teach him Latin and Greek; so, you 
 know, what a sad thing that must be ! The 
 book of quadrupeds, I think, is a very use- 
 ful book to me. My Mental Improvement 
 also is a very useful book ; for I too learn a 
 great deal from it. The serval, which is 
 beautifully spotted, is extremely fierce. 
 These circumstances, which to me have 
 been very curious, now are less curious. 
 
168 
 
 You must know, that Mrs. B 's little 
 
 boy must be very miserable, as he has no 
 
 father, because Mr. B , who was his 
 
 father, is now dead, as I told you before. 
 Now, my dear Mrs. P , see how miser- 
 able it would make mothers and little boys, 
 
 if the little boys' fathers are dead ! 
 
 I now learn Latin, which I believe you 
 know. I have three maps, England, Eu- 
 rope, and the World. I have also three 
 sets of Chronological Tables ; the English, 
 the Roman, and the French. In the county 
 of Oxfordshire is Woodstock; in the county 
 of Devonshire is Exeter, which is the ca- 
 pital town; also in Cheshire is the river 
 Wever. In Yorkshire is the town of Leeds ; 
 York the capital town ; and in Northum- 
 berland, Alnewick. In Cornwall, is Laun- 
 ceston, the capital town. Bodmin also is 
 in Cornwall; in Cumberland is Whiter 
 
 haven ; so in Lincolnshire is Boston 
 
 Now the Latin goes on very well; for I did 
 such a good exercise to-day, that you can- 
 not think it. My Latin Dictionary teaches 
 
169 
 
 me a great deal of Latin ; for I always find 
 the words I look for, sometimes in different 
 senses. So now, you know, you must an- 
 swer my letter, or else it would not be a 
 good one. God bless you, my dear Mrs. 
 
 P , and I desire and hope you may be 
 
 well. Next month it will be very cold. 
 Every thing will be frozen then, except 
 us 
 
 In a letter, dated Plaxtol, Kent, July 6, 
 1801, he gives the following modest ac- 
 count of his progress in drawing. 
 
 " I have drawn a very nice head, a great 
 deal larger than the original; only, as it 
 cannot be expected otherwise from me, 
 being only five years and eight months old, 
 there were a few mistakes that I need not 
 tell you of." 
 
170 
 
 THE STORY 
 
 O* AN 
 
 OFFICER'S FAMILY IN ALLESTONE. 
 
 FOR MY NEAREST MOTHER. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 An Allestonian family, one which was in 
 the greatest rank and fortune, at least for the 
 subjects of fhe king, were very happy on 
 the coming of a little healthy foaby, which 
 family God had given reason to know that 
 it would come. — According to your recom- 
 mendation, I wi l fl now go on to the foegin- 
 ning of his education. The wise education 
 of the parents gave the son, named in Latin 
 Geoffricus Lanleius, great instruction in 
 learning the alphabet. The progress that 
 he made, having a spelling-book of the same 
 edition as my own, enabled him to attend 
 to the rules for reading. His progress was 
 
171 
 
 not discovered, till on a day he shewed it 
 so much, that Mr. and Mrs. Lanley began 
 to think that he might begin to learn Latin, 
 Greek, &e. as he had before learnt well to 
 spell. This Latin began to occur to his 
 learning, on the first of May, in the year 
 iii which he was advancing to four years old. 
 But unfortunately, as his mother knew more 
 of Latin than his father, he could hardly 
 get on from the third till the twenty-first of 
 May, as his maternal teacher was then de- 
 livered of a baby, whom his father christen* 
 
 ed . Universal applause succeeded to 
 
 the father, as he exercised his great diligence 
 and knowledge of the little service ; and this 
 succeeded especially in Geoffry, who was 
 then present. An undertaking was made, 
 by Mr. Lanley and Geoffry, in which no- 
 thing is so surprising as Geoffry 's cleverness 
 in the occurrence of a Journey to P — t. 
 This undertaking was made on the eighth 
 day of the month. They, instead of going 
 that day, spent the rest of it in wise calcu- 
 lations for their journey. According to their 
 
172 
 
 spending, they at first calculated the sum 
 that this would afford them : next how to 
 get a conveyance, which would convey their 
 baggage neatly, &c. and all those little ac- 
 commodations, which are necessary in a 
 journey. Next, how to spend the time at 
 the House of Commons, and Lords, as they 
 were partly to spend the time in both places. 
 — Night arrived, at least the hour of ten. 
 Geoffry, till his sleep, continued his reflec- 
 tions. The next morning, in the course of 
 hours, came, of the day in which they were 
 to go out 
 
 THE END. 
 
 T. Bensley, Printer, 
 Bull Court, Fleet S'reet, LondM. 
 
$*::■ 
 
 1*V- 
 
 '4# 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 'JQf 
 
 M 
 
 J£, 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 W< 
 
 ■