spirits of her children. The lady in question did the reverse; and my mother feeling the necessity of the case, and touched with pity for children in the same danger as her own, was at length moved to break through the delicacy she had observed, and expostulate strongly with her, to the increased admiration of the captain, who congratulated himself on having a female passenger so truly worthy of the name of woman. Many years afterwards, near the same spot, and during a similar danger, her son, the writer of this book, with a wife and seven children around him, had occasion to call her to mind; and the example was of service even to him, a man. It was thought a miracle that the Earl of Effingham was saved. It was driven into Swansea Bay, and borne along by the heaving might of the waves into a shallow, where no vessel of so large a size ever appeared before; nor could it ever have got there, but by so unwonted an overlifting.

Having been born nine years later than the youngest of my brothers, I have no recollection of my mother's earlier aspect. Her eyes were always fine, and her person lady-like; her hair also retained its colour for a long period; but her brown complexion had been exchanged for a jaundiced one, which she retained through life; and her cheeks were sunken, and her mouth drawn down with sorrow at the corners. She retained the energy of her character on great occasions; but her spirit in ordinary was weakened, and she looked at the bustle and discord of the present state of society with a frightened aversion. My father's danger, and the warwhoops of the Indians which she heard in Philadelphia, had shaken her soul as well as frame. The sight of two men fighting in the streets would drive her in tears down another road; and I remember, when we lived near the park, she would take me a long circuit out of the way rather than hazard the spectacle of the soldiers. Little did she think of the timidity with which she was thus inoculating me, and what difficulty I should have, when I went to school, to sustain all those fine theories, and that unbending resistance to oppression, which she inculcated. However, perhaps it ultimately turned out for the best. One must feel more than

usual for the sore places of humanity, even to fight properly in their behalf. Never shall I forget her face, as it used to appear to me coming up the cloisters, with that weary hang of the head on one side, and that melancholy smile!

One holiday, in a severe winter, as she was taking me home, she was petitioned for charity by a woman sick and ill-clothed. It was in Blackfriars' Road, I think about midway. My mother, with the tears in her eyes, turned up a gateway, or some such place, and beckoning the woman to follow, took off her flannel petticoat, and gave it her. It is supposed that a cold which ensued, fixed the rheumatism upon her to life. Actions like these have doubtless been often performed, and do not of necessity imply any great virtue in the performer; but they do if they are of a piece with the rest of the character. Saints have been made for charities no greater.

The reader will allow me to quote a passage out of a poem of mine, because it was suggested by a recollection I had upon me of this excellent woman. It is almost the only passage in that poem worth repeating, which I mention, in order that he may lay the quotation to its right account, and not suppose I am anxious to repeat my verses because I fancy they must be good. In everything but the word "happy," the picture is from life. The bird spoken of is the nightingale-the

"Bird of wakeful glow,

Whose louder song is like the voice of life,
Triumphant o'er death's image; but whose deep,
Low, lovelier note is like a gentle wife,

A poor, a pensive, yet a happy one,

Stealing, when daylight's common tasks are done,
An hour for mother's work; and singing low,

While her tired husband and her children sleep."

I have spoken of my mother during my father's troubles in England. She stood by him through them all; and in everything did more honour to marriage, than marriage did good to either of them: for it brought little happiness to her, and too many children to both. Of his changes of opinion, as well as of fortune, she partook also. She became a Unitarian, a Universalist, perhaps a Republican; and in her new opinions, as in her old, was apt, I suspect, to be a little too

peremptory, and to wonder at those who could be of the other side. It was her only fault. She would have mended it had she lived till now. Though not a republican myself, I have been thought, in my time, to speak too severely of kings and princes. I think I did, and that society is no longer to be bettered in that manner, but in a much calmer and nobler way. But I was a witness, in my childhood, to a great deal of suffering; I heard of more all over the world; and kings and princes bore a great share in the causes to which they were traced.

Some of those causes were not to be denied. It is now understood, on all hands, that the continuation of the American war was owing to the personal stubbornness of the king. My mother, in her indignation at him for being the cause of so much unnecessary bloodshed, thought that the unfortunate malady into which he fell was a judgment of Providence.

My mother's intolerance, after all, was only in theory. When anything was to be done, charity in her always ran before faith. If she could have served and benefited the king himself personally, indignation would soon have given way to humanity. She had a high opinion of everything that was decorous and feminine on the part of a wife; yet when a poor violent woman, the wife of an amiable and eloquent preacher, went so far on one occasion as to bite his hand in a fit of jealous rage as he was going to ascend his pulpit (and he preached in great pain), my mother was the only female of her acquaintance that continued to visit her; alleging that she needed society and comfort so much the more. She had the highest notions of chastity; yet when a servant came to her, who could get no place because she had had an illegitimate child, my mother took her into her family upon the strength of her candour and her destitute condition, and was served during the remainder of the mistress's life with affectionate gratitude.

My mother's favourite books were Dr. Young's Night Thoughts (which was a pity), and Mrs. Rowe's Devout Exercises of the Heart. I remember also her expressing great admiration of the novels of Mrs. Inchbald, especially the Simple Story. She was very fond of poetry, and used to

hoard my verses in her pocket-book, and encourage me to write, by showing them to the Wests and the Thorntons. Her friends loved and honoured her to the last : and, I believe, they retained their regard for the family.

My mother's last illness was long, and was tormented with rheumatism. I envied my brother Robert the recollection of the filial attentions he paid her; but they shall be as much known as I can make them, not because he was my brother (which is nothing), but because he was a good son, which is much; and every good son and mother will be my warrant. My other brothers, who were married, were away with their families; and I, who ought to have attended more, was as giddy as I was young, or rather a great deal more so. I attended, but not enough. How often have we occasion to wish that we could be older or younger than we are, according as we desire to have the benefit of gaiety or experience! Her greatest pleasure during her decay was to lie on a sofa, looking at the setting sun. She used to liken it to the door of heaven, and fancy her lost children there, waiting for her. She died in the fifty-third year of her age, in a little miniature house which stands in a row behind the church that has been since built in Somerstown; and she was buried, as she had always wished to be, in the churchyard of Hampstead.

CHAPTER II.

CHILDHOOD.

I HAVE spoken of the Duke of Chandos, to whose nephew, Mr. Leigh, my father became tutor. Mr. Leigh, who gave me his name, was son of the duke's sister, Lady Caroline, and died member of parliament. He was one of the kindest and gentlest of men, addicted to those tastes for poetry and sequestered pleasure, which were conspicuous in his son, Lord Leigh; for all which reasons it would seem, and contrary to the usurping qualities in such cases made and provided, he and his family were subjected to one of the most extraordinary

charges that a defeated claim ever brought drunken witnesses to set up; no less than the murder and burial of a set of masons, who were employed in building a bridge, and whose destruction in the act of so doing was to bury both them and a monument which they knew of for ever! To complete the romance of the tragedy, a lady, the wife of the usurper, presides over the catastrophe. She cries, "Let go!" while the poor wretches are raising a stone at night-time, amidst a scene of torches and seclusion; and down goes the stone, aided by this tremendous father and son, and crushes the victims of her ambition! She meant, as Cowley says Goliah did of David,

"At once their murder and their monument."

If a charge of the most awful crimes could be dug up against the memories of such men as Thomson and Shenstone, or of Cowley, or Cowper, or the "Man of Ross," it could not have created more laughing astonishment in the minds of those who knew them, than such a charge against the family of the Leighs. Its late representative in the notes to his volume of poems, printed some years ago, quoted the "following beautiful passage" out of Fielding:

"It was the middle of May, and the morning was remarkably serene, when Mr. Allworthy walked forth on the terrace, where the dawn opened every minute that lovely prospect we have before described, to his eye. And now having sent forth streams of light which ascended to the firmament before him, as harbingers preceding his pomp, in the full blaze of his majesty up rose the sun; than which one object alone in this lower creation could be more glorious, and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented: a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to his creatures." "This," adds the quoter, "is the portrait of a fictitious personage; but I see in it a close resemblance to one whose memory I shall never cease to venerate."

The allusion is to his father, Mr. Leigh.

But I must not anticipate the verdict of a court of justice.*

The verdict was subsequently given. It almost seemed ridiculous, it was so unnecessary; except, indeed, as a caution to the like of those whom it punished.