of fuel, and of making birdlime from the vast growth of hollies, claimed by peasants, whose forefathers had built their turf cottages on the waste lands of the forest; the rights of more important inhabitants to venison, game, timber, etc., had to be considered by the commission of the enclosure, and compensated by allotments of land. On May 9, 1811, the final award was signed, by which the freeholders' portion was subdivided amongst the various persons who bad claims thereon. Practically the two surveyors had to decide the awards; it was, consequently, a source of deep thankfulness to my father, who had throughout refused gifts from any interested party, that all claimants, from the richest to the poorest, were satisfied with their awards. On returning from the Forest of Dean my parents had temporarily resided in a small, semi-detached house belonging to them, having let the old home on a short lease. By March, 1802, however, they must have removed to their usual habitation, with grandfather for an inmate, as my first recollection is a dim remembrance of the old man delivering in the kitchen some piece of intelligence which was received by the assembled household with expressions of joy. I was told later that it must have been the announcement of the Peace of Amiens. Grandfather did not long remain under the same roof, for having, in a moment of great excitement, wounded little Anna with the large scissors he used to cut out the strong veins of the leaves which he dried, and feeling it a sad mischance, he was made willing to remove himself and his medicaments. He took up his abode with some simple, good people in a com fortable cottage on the enclosed land, which had formerly been the heath. At this distance he acquired for us children a certain interest and charm. The walk to his dwelling was pleasant. His sunny sitting room, with the small stove, from which pungent odors issued, the chafing dishes, metallic tractors, the curious glasses and retorts and ancient tomes excited our imagination; in after years we perceived that it must have resembled the study of an alchemist. Here amongst his drying herbs and occult possessions he taught the poorest, most neglected boys to read, from a sense of Christian duty, which was generally regarded as a queer crotchet, for it was before the days of Bell and Lancaster, and when ragged schools were unimagined. How well do I remember him! His features were good, but his countenance severe; over his very grey hair he wore a grey worsted wig, with three stiff rows of curls behind, and was attired in a dark. brown, collarless suit of a very old-fashioned cut, wearing out of doors a cocked hat, also of an old Quaker type, a short great coat or spencer, and in winter grey, ribbed, worsted leggings, drawn to the middle of the thigh. Although a stickler for old customs, he was one of the very first in the midland counties to use an umbrella. The one that belonged to him was a substantial concern, covered with oilcloth or oil silk, with a large ring at the top, by which it was hung up. Having a reputation in the Society as a minister, he now and then paid visits to other meetings, but never very far from home; and considering himself connected with Phoebe Howitt, of Heanor, by the marriage of his stepson John to her aunt, felt it doubly incumbent to repair thither. At Heanor-then a secluded Derbyshire village, situated high and pleasantly on the western boundary of the Erewash Valley-dwelt Thomas Howitt, an essentially practical, clear-headed Quaker, possessing a large, fully developed frame and great natural capacity, who farmed his own land and managed extensive coalpits; while his wife, of a small, delicate frame, one of the best and gentlest of women, unworldly, full of devotion, a mystic in her faith, a keen lover of nature, the mother and physician of the whole parish, found in John Botham a useful and congenial companion, with whom she could consult concerning "worts of heal ing power." With Thomas and Phoebe Howitt, the parents of my future husband, we had no personal acquaintance, merely a somewhat disagreeable association, from his having obtained from them the plant asarabacca, which had caused mother vio lent headaches, and was the chief ingredient of his cephalic snuff. In their society the simple, religious, and therefore the best side of his charac ter, was exhibited. He was consequently described to me in after years by my husband as a welcome guest, generally arriv ing at harvest-time, when he would employ himself in the pleasant field-labor, quoting beautiful and appropriate texts of Scrip ture as applicable to the scenes around him. This I can well understand from a little incident in my childhood. Rebecca Summerland, the daughter of grandfather's stepson John, had married in 1801 a Friend named Joseph Burgess, of Grooby Lodge, near Leicester. She became the mother of a little boy - William with whom, when staying at his grandparents Summerland, we were permitted to play. On one of these happy occasions, their rarity enhancing the delight, we had already arrived at Aunt Summerland's, when grandfather unexpectedly appeared. Our parents were absent from home, and he, wishful to look after us, had come to take us a walk. To refuse was not to be thought of; we very reluctantly left little William and started under his escort. But grandfather was unusually kind and gentle, and to give us a treat, took us to see father's small tillage farm at the distance of a couple of miles from home. Grandfather passed away in his eightyfourth year, and we often glanced at his grave in the quiet meeting-house yard, where in the early summer a mother ewe and her lambs were turned in to graze on the abundant grass. It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the stillness and isolation of our lives as children. Our father's introverted character and naturally meditative turn of mind made him avoid social intercourse and restrict his participation in outward events to what was absolutely needful for the exact fulfilment of his professional and religious labors. Our mother's clear, intelligent mind, her culture and refinement, were chastened and subdued by her new spiritual convictions, and by painful social surroundings, which were aggravated by the death of her sympathizer, Ann Shipley. Our nurse, Hannah, was dull and melancholy, seeking to stifle an attachment which she had formed in the Forest of Dean for a handsome carpenter of dubious character, and unconvinced of Friends' principles. Each of our reticent caretakers was subjected to severe inward ordeals, and incapable of infusing knowledge and brightness into our young minds; and as little Anna was unable to talk at four, she was sent daily to a cheerful old woman who kept a dame school, and in more lively surroundings acquired the power of speech. He talked about the trees and plants in Timber Lane, which, winding up from the town to the top of a hill, was hemmed in by steep, mossy banks, luxuriant with wild flowers and ferns, and overarched by the green boughs of the oak, hawthorn, and alder, having a clear little stream gurgling along one side. And when we came out on the open, breezy hill, with the high, bushy banks of Needwood Forest extending before us in wooded promonotories for many a mile, he spoke about the young calves in the fields; and passing a barn by a stile, with a partly dead ash-tree growing near it, must have told us in Scriptural language something about the barren fig tree, for ever after, even to this moment, I recall the bit of scenery like a After we could both talk, being chiefly woodcut by Bewick, and with it the inci- left to converse together, our ignorance dent recorded in the last sorrowful days of the true appellations for many ordinary of our Lord. At length we reached the sentiments and actions compelled us to farm of eighteen acres, which we had last coin and use words of our own. I can seen in autumnal desolation. Now all recall the first dawn of awakened intelliwas beautifully green and fresh; the lower gence within me, and how, standing in the portion closed for hay, the upper filled garden and suddenly perceiving with with vigorous young vegetation, tender pleasurable surprise that our own little blades of wheat springing from the earth, flower-beds, the big apple-trees, the stone green leaflets of the flax for mother's roller, the adjacent meadow, the wooden spinning just visible; next the plot re- bridge over the stream, had each acquired served for turnips, the field being enclosed an individuality, were the separate parts by a broad, grassy headland, a perfect of a great whole, I exclaimed to myself, border of flowers, of which we had soon "Now I can think and understand, all our hands full. All our vexation and ill- that I have hitherto felt has been buntemper had now vanished, and we returned gum!" This word was to me the equiv to tea with little William at Aunt Sum-alent of a dark void. To sneeze was to merland's happier than we had been on our arrival. This walk gave my sister Anna her first taste for botany. She probably inherited from grandfather her passionate love of flowers, whilst she learnt from his copy of Miller's "Gardeners' Chronicle," which became her property after his death, to appreciate the wonderful beauty of the Linnæan system. us both, akisham the sound which one of our parents must have made in sneezing. Roman numerals which we saw on the title-pages of most books conveyed no other idea than the word ickly mickly dic tines. Italic printing was softly writing. Our parents often spoke together of divi dends; this suggested to me some connection with the devil, and I was grieved and perplexed to hear our good parents talk without hesitation or sense of impro- | nals, "The Persecution of Friends," and priety of those wicked dividends. Had similar works, were read aloud, and when there been an open, communicative spirit in the family these strange expressions and misapprehensions would have either never arisen or been at once corrected. Our mother must, however, have taught us early to read, for I cannot remember when we could not do so, but neither she nor our father ever gave or permitted us to receive direct religious tuition. Firmly adhering to the fundamental principles of George Fox, that Christ, the true inward light, sends to each individual interior in spirations as their guide of Christian faith, and that his spirit, being free, does not sub mit to human learning and customs, aiming to preserve us in unsullied innocence, they consigned us to him in lowly confidence for guidance and instruction. So fearful were they of interfering with his workings that they did not even teach us the Lord's Prayer. We first learnt it when, at eight and nine years of age, we were permitted to attend a school kept by our excellent next-door neighbor, Mrs. Parker, and where, seated apart to avoid worldly contamination, we heard the other pupils recite the Church Catechism. Yet they gave us to commit to memory Robert Barclay's "Catechism and Confession of Faith " a compilation of texts applied to the doc trines of Friends, and supposed "to be fitted for the wisest and largest as well as the weakest and lowest capacities," but which left us in the state of the perplexed eunuch before Philip instructed him in the Holy Writ. The Bible, being acknowledged a secondary rule, and subordinate to the Spirit, had become neglected in many Friends' families. This led the Yearly Meeting, in the early part of the century, to recommend Friends everywhere to adopt the habit of daily reading the Scriptures, and father, deputed by the authorities, endeavored without success to induce the other members of our meeting to comply with the advice. He himself had ever set them the example, and whilst bearing his testimony that it is the Spirit not the Scriptures which is the ground and source of all truth, diligently studied the Bible, at the same time refusing to call it the Word of God, a term he only applied to Christ, the true Gospel. Each morning a chapter was read after breakfast, followed by a pause for interior application and instruction by the Holy Spirit, the purpose of this silence being, however, never explained to us. In the long winter even ings the Old Testament, Friends' Jour gone through were succeeded by " Foxe's Book of Martyrs" - a large folio edition with engravings that made our blood curdle; as to the narrative we listened yet wished not to hear, until, proving too terrible reading just before bedtime, it was set aside. I had also to read to father during the day when some mechanical operation left his mind disengaged. Thomas à Kempis was a great favorite with him; not so with me, as I understood the constant exhortation to take up the cross to refer to using the plain language and plain attire of Friends, and our peculiar garb, many degrees more ungainly than that of most strict Friends, was already a perfect crucifixion to Anna and me. The New Testament never came amiss, although on one occasion I received from father a stern reprimand for having, when reading the miracle of the loaves and fishes as related by St. Mark, inserted, as he sup. posed, the word green in the thirty-ninth verse," And he commanded them to make them sit down by companies upon the green grass." He continued sternly, "Mary, thou must not add or take from Scripture." Please, father, it is green grass," I replied. "Let me see, let me see," he exclaimed ; and after looking at the verse, added in a surprised but appeased tone, “I had never noticed it." We children went to meeting twice on First-day, walking demurely hand in hand behind our parents; and once on Fifthday with mother alone if father was ab. sent in the forest. These silent meetings were far from profitable to me. I did not know the need of this religious observance, and whilst preserving the grave composure that marked the quiet, motionless assembly, gave full vent to the activity of my young, lively imagination. How grieved would my parents have been at this want of mental discipline! How still more shocked and alarmed had they known the work of destruction to the purity and innocence of my soul which was being carried on by a trusted member of their household! Hannah, the nurse, unable to conquer her attachment, had married the worthless carpenter, and thus plagued her own heart ever after. Father and mother, aware of the vital importance of early influences, had sought long and anxiously for a proper substitute, which they believed they had dignation they have broken into warehouses, seized the hoarded grain, and thrown it into the sea. Peter Price, who ultimately met with in a countrywoman, about thirty, who knew her work as if by instinct, speedily expressed a desire to attend meetings, and by her irreproachable is a corn merchant, has in consequence conduct, sobriety of dress, and staidness left off purchasing grain. He has tempoof demeanor, won their entire confidence. rarily suspended business, and set bis Nanny, as she was called, equally ensnared clerks and warehousemen at liberty; and us children. She had a memory stored, I feeling quite secure, has gone with his suppose, with every song that ever was wife, in their one-horse chaise, as the printed on a half penny sheet or sold in a Falmouth representatives, to the distant country fair, which she repeated in a wild Quarterly Meeting. They have left their recitative, that attracted us as much as if home and children in mother's care, and it had been singing; was familiar with have been absent two or three days, when ghosts, hobgoblins, and fairies; knew the news spreads through the alarmed much of the vices and less of the virtues town that the rioters are coming. While of both town and country life; and find- mother hurriedly despatches messengers ing us insatiable listeners, eagerly retailed to collect the clerks and warehousemen, to us her stores of miscellaneous-chiefly the street before the house becomes filled evil - knowledge under a seal of secrecy with several thousand strong, clamorous, which we never broke. We trembled when we heard her utter an oath; but had no hesitation in learning from her whist, Nanny always playing dummy, and using a tea board on her lap as a card-table. fierce-looking men and women. The ringleaders rush to the house, eagerly demanding to speak with Mr. Price. Mother, already attired in bonnet and shawl, standing on the doorsteps, explains that Mr. Yet we were not entirely left to the fas- Price is absent; that he has no hoarded cinations of this shrewd, eloquent, coarse-grain, only a considerable quantity of minded woman. When father's surveying damaged wheat, which from principle he in the forest necessitated his absence from forbears to offer for sale. The listeners home a part of each week, our mother re-treat the plea of damaged corn as an exquired us to sew or knit for hours together cuse, and peremptorily demand the wareby her side, whilst she busily plied her house keys. Our brave-hearted mother needle or her wheel, in the parlor or the fetches the bunch of heavy keys, but ingarden porch. I particularly remember stead of giving them to the rude hands her spinning in the porch, because it hav-stretched out to clutch them, holds them ing a brick floor with a second porch below opening into the lower story, the wheel gave a hollow, louder sound, which caused us to bring our low seats close to her knee, that we might catch every word of her utterance. Never ceasing our employ. ment for, to use mother's phrase, "we must not nurse our work" we listened with breathless attention to descriptions of her girlhood at Cyfarthfa, to" Lavinia," from Thomson's "Seasons," and the other poems she had learnt from her father; to exciting tales of her Cornish life. And since I have been led to mention her graphic power of narration, let me be pardoned for giving two scenes of her portrayal, which have thus been recalled. It is the end of the last century, and all the country is in a state of excitement on the question of corn. The growers imagine they could get better prices, and the buyers that they could purchase cheaper, if the profits of the intermediate dealers were saved. The common people are made to believe that the dearths, which frequently occur, arise from the practice of the dealers in buying up corn and withdrawing it from the market. In their in firmly, saying she will show them the truth of her words. With the ringleaders closed round her like a guard of honor and the mob following, she proceeds to the warehouses, which are situated on the harbor. Then, unlocking the great doors, she admits the leaders. They search the warehouses, find and leave untouched the damaged wheat, and retire with expressions of apology and of admiration for her courage and courtesy. She, feeling faint and hardly able to support herself, is met in the street by Mr. Price's stout warehousemen and servants, who are hastening forward, not knowing what terrible scene they may have to witness. And again. Mother, about to visit her family in south Wales, has taken her passage in a sailing vessel from Falmouth to Swansea. She is arranging her multifarious luggage on board, when a handsome young sailor, of a singularly agreeable appearance, rushes into her cabin. The press-gang is coming, he says, “and is sure to seize him, the only young and likely man on board. He had just returned from a long voyage. Will the lady save him from this cruel fate? will she let him secrete himself among her luggage?" Mother abhors the tyrannical custom of seizing men by force for service on the ships of war, and, full of compassion, conThe king's sents to his concealment. officer with his men search the vessel. He next opens the door of mother's cabin, and apparently much out of humor, advances cutlass in hand. Mother, looking up from her book or work, begs him to respect the privacy of her cabin. The captain of the press-gang makes a sign to his men to stand back; but says "he is bound to do his duty; a man is miss ing, whom he has reason to suppose is Mother, out on board, therefore wardly calm but inwardly terribly alarmed, interrupts him with the words, "I am a lady travelling alone, you are a gentleman." These words seem to disarm him. He offers a polite apology, and retiring, quits the vessel with his men. at sea. The moment they are gone the captain gives orders to sail. The rescued sailor creeps from his hiding-place, but is not allowed to show himself till they are out He becomes mother's devoted attendant during the long and stormy passage which ensues; whilst she, the only female on board, receives extreme consideration from the captain and the entire crew, who regard her as a general bene factress. I can to this day smile at her anecdote of the mayor and corporation of Looe, who when ordered by the War Office to prepare for an expected French invasion, requested, in consideration of the smallness of the town, "to construct a twenti fication instead of a fortification," and accordingly erected a fort of twenty guns, which, as mother would remark," remains to this day." During these hours of unrestrained converse, she would become lively, almost merry, even silently laughing. It was a revelation of her character quite new to us, and we were happy under its influence. Our naturally quick, receptive faculties, deprived of the amusement of ordinary children, became wonderfully sharpened by mother's graphic, healthy tales, by Nanny's wild, strange communications, investing even our dull surroundings with a life and charm, and whilst occasioning us often to put our own or Nanny's construction on the actions of our neighbors, making us realize their dispositions and sympathize with their needs. With what shrinking curiosity, for instance, did we regard Mr. Humphrey Pipe the lawyer, who was the first to use were With what excitement did we note any interchange of civility between mother and Mrs. Clowes, the widow of a clergyman, and who styled herself in consequence the Rev. Anne Clowes. Although she was known by everybody, and was an honored if not an acceptable guest in the best houses of the neighborhood, she lived quite alone in a narrow alley, without a bell or knocker to her house door, on She occupied an which her friends were instructed to rap loudly with a stone. upper room confusedly crowded with goods and chattels of every description picked up at auctions, and piles of crockery and china, having the casements filled with as many pieces of rag, pasteboard, and cobwebs as small panes of glass. She slept in a large salting trough, with a switch at her side to keep off the rats. This mean and miserable abode she termed, in her grandiloquent language, "the hallowed spot into which only were introduced the great in mind, in wealth, or birth;" and on one occasion spoke of "a most delightful visit from two of Lord Waterpark's sons, when the feast of reason and the flow of soul' had been so absorbing, that one, Mr. Cavendish, in descending the stairs had set his foot in her mutton pie, which was ready for the oven." Each Whitsuntide we saw her marching at the head of the Odd Fellows' Club, with a bouquet of lilacs and peonies blazing on her breast up to her chin, holding in one hand a long staff, her usual out-door companion. She was not insane, only a very original person, running wild amongst a number of other eccentric worthies, all of whom left indelible impressions on our minds. One summer we felt brought into very close contact with the gay world by a visit from Aunt Dorothy Sylvester. She accompanied mother from London, where the latter had attended Yearly Meeting, and as they arrived late one Seventh-day night, she was first seen by us children the next morning, fashionably attired for church, which drew forth the exclamation from one of us: "Oh, aunt, shan't thou |