ry, or with just perhaps a shade or two less than what was required by professional strictness, he was confided to the fondness of a maternal uncle to be reared and educated. Of course this cost the latter nothing; because the infant was to live on coarse rice-such as required, by way of expense, only the despicable pittance of not more than about three rupees a month, and vegetables such as were got for the begging. This infant, preserved in penury and beggary, grows up in time, not, like those of his class, a meek, alms-seeking boy, but bold and impetuous, and rather of a violent and domineering disposition. He had been torn from the bosom of his parents at a very early age, and his adoptive father permitted the greatest indulgence in him, lest he should feel dissatisfied with his relations; every one near him, therefore-uncle, aunt, neighbours and all, had to yield obedience to the pet child, who thus felt himself rather encouraged "to play the little tyrant," and was not, we should suppose, unwilling to try the character on occasions. This bold, impetuous child grew in time into a boy in digoji, and his education was then to be considered. Fortunately, this was even cheaper than his men HARRIS IN EARLY LIFE. 13 dicant living; for it cost the beggar father absolutely nothing. He was installed as a charity-boy of the Bhowaneepore Union School, an insignificant village seminary, which subsisted on the philanthropy of a few benevolent officials. Here his character changed; his impetuosity still remained, but his sense of the moral dignity of man increased. He devoted his attention and energies to the cultivation of his faculties, and studied with the facility of a precocious boy, mastering every subject of his curriculum to the extent of his tutors' capacity to teach, and displaying a spirit thorough-going through every task; sifting, instead of passively receiving-a baneful characteristic, only too general among us-everything that came to his mind right and left, and suggesting difficulties and cross-questionings so awkward, that one of his Native teachers, it is said, always stood in dread of the shrewd-minded pupil. But the pupil who could take in all in so comprehensive a grasp of the mind as to master his varied studies, whose progress attracted the regard and attention of the head European Master, and whose shrewdness and intelligence confounded the Native tutor, and often put him to the blush by the correct ness of his explanation and analysis against the authoritative interpretation of passages, was not destined to finish his education-not destined to go beyond the meagre elements of a charity-school, and come in contact with those elevated and refined minds who are capacitated to take us to "Drink deep, not merely taste the Piræan spring."* The boy could not hold himself out longer in school: the means of support at home were very scant and precarious; the cry for bread became urgent and piteous; and he humanely determined to sacrifice his embellishments to the natural wants of a starving family. He left his school at the early age of thirteenwhen the faculties are said just to commence developing,—to dash himself into the world, for the purpose of supplying his own and a beloved family's animal wants; though it must at the same time be borne in mind, that, with the school, as he subsequently proved to the world, he did not leave his books. When he left the school, to procure a livelihood, he begged for a common clerkship everywhere that he could. persuade himself to hope for one; but he found * Pope, with a verbal alteration. STRUGGLE WITH POVERTY. 15 no charity in men to respond to his dutiful endeavours; and wherever he applied he had the mortification to find his merit, learning, and school-passport ridiculed and rejected by heads and assistants, who were always found to be guided in their selection by stiff-necked old keranee subordinates, who had slowly risen to position and fortune by the help of neither. The only passport then, as even now, to any situation, however mean, was a letter of recommendation. But poor Harris, born of beggarly parents, was as beggarly, as concerned that contemptible but indispensable commodity, as his parents. He was therefore obliged to betake himself to the business, as vicarious as uncertain, of drawing up petitions, letters, bills, &c., which brought him, no doubt, a stray rupee now and then, but it could not certainly be sufficient to give to him his livelihood; and he became desperate in position. On one unfortunate day, when he had not a grain of rice in his house for a simple dinner, and the call of nature could not be unattended to, he thought, poor soul, of mortgaging a brass plate to buy his simple fare. It was raining hard and furious, and there was no umbrella to go out under. Pensive and sad did the famished youth sit in the house, meditating upon his unfortunate lotnot, however, without a full reliance in the providence of Him who oversees the needy wants of all, providing with an unsparing hand for the poor and the destitute. He looked down upon Harris, sitting alone and grievous, and rescued the unfortunate victim of cruel fate from sheer starvation, by sending to him, just in the very nick of time, the mookhtyar of a rich zemindar with a document for translation. The fee was but two rupees-but it was a godsend: like the manna in the wilderness to the wandering Israelites, it proved to be the providential supplying of his pressing wants; and Harris, receiving it, offered up his thanks to Him who had so mysteriously saved his life, feeling at once the full truth of those trite but wholesome lines "For young and old, the stout, the poorly, But leaving this scene of early penury and wretchedness, we will now turn to the latter end of his life—to within a year of the present time, to June 1861. Let us imagine ourselves placed before the residence of a Baboo gentleman-a Calcutta mansion in Bhowaneepore, a mansion with a decent verandah and look-out; with its |