of his posteriors, as if, in derision, to invite a kiss. I stood as closely as possible clinging to my father, and shrinking from this wretch, who in vain attempted to encourage me by his smiles, or rather ghastly grinning, which only served the more to terrify and to disgust me. After some time consumed in this manner, it was agreed that I should be left in the hands of this worthy preceptor, and receive sixpence per week as pocketmoney, a very ample revenue, as I then thought, but all which I would very readily have given up, in order to escape from the fangs of the wild beast to whom I was entrusted. My father left me; I felt as if bereft of every comfort, as if deserted of God and man; all was one dreary blank; I shed tears in abundance, which somewhat relieved the anguish of my soul. I entered the schoolroom; in vain I looked around for the smile of affection; I listened in vain for the voice of kindness. I discovered at one corner, rude, and. noisy, and boisterous, and mischievous merriment; at another, quarrelling, and black-guard railing, and fighting; here, some solitary lads cramming down their

pies and cakes with the utmost rapidity, at the hazard of suffocation, lest any one should ask for a portion of their dainty; there, four or five barbarians, teazing, and pinching, and beating, and kicking, and tormenting a poor, little, delicate, puny, interestingcountenanced boy, because he was crying for the loss of his mother, who was lately dead. This last was a species of iniquity which I had never before been witness to, had never imagined to be possible, and which filled me with the most lively indignation. I flew to the unhappy child's rescue, reproached the brutes for their cruelty, and got myself most severely thumped, and buffetted, and spitten on, and unmercifully bruised, that I might learn, as they kindly informed me, 66 not to meddle with what did not belong to me." This exercitation being finished, I, with difficulty, rose from the ground, and exhibited a spectacle in the highest degree entertaining. The whole school now gathered round me, and various were the animadversions made on my appearance; the blood streaming from my nose was an inexhaustible source of mirth to many; not

a few observed, that I must now be able to see much more clearly, as my eyes were a great deal larger, and very black into the bargain; some thought my shirt very prettily painted; others, that my hair was, to be sure, rather dishevelled, but then it had not been very judiciously thinned. These, and many more taunts and sneers were passed upon me, till, quite frantic with rage, I made my way out into the play-ground, at the expense of a few more kicks, and cuffs, and pinches, and hair-pullings. My mind looked fondly towards home, where I would gladly have been, for I loved every member of the family, and my mother not the least; for, though inclined to the use of the argumen-tum a posteriori,' yet she was kind, considerate, and humane, save when the tempest of her passions was raised. She was never deliberately unjust. My father I loved with an earnestness of affection, which his amiable, and excellent, and unceasing attention to the welfare of us all justly merited; my brothers and sisters too, with all of whom I contrived very frequently to quarrel, were dear to me. What a change! what a differ

ence between home and this infernal spot, where I had just experienced the most wanton cruelty and barbarous injustice! Alone, gloomy, and desponding, I threw myself on the ground, and gave way to the most piercing sorrow and cutting anguish, that my little heart was capable of enduring. I dwelt, with a kind of phrenzied horror, on a scene to which I was witness in my early days, and which will never be obliterated from my mind, long as memory holds her seat in this distracted globe.' On a fine summer's day, when I had nearly reached my fourth year, I watched an opportunity to sally forth alone, and rambled on, I knew not whither, till seeing a great crowd, assembled near the banks of a river, I hastened to a spot which seemed likely to afford gratification to my curiosity. Among the mob I crept on, till I arrived at the first row, by the progressive motion of which I was soon thrust forward, so as to touch the dead body of a woman newly taken up out of a shallow place in the river, where she had been drowned. The eyes were open, fixed, and horrible to look on; all the

countenance was pale, emaciated, and dreadfully distorted; and the foam which lay in her mouth served not to conceal, but render more ghastly, the convulsive smile of death. I knew the woman's face again, for I had seen it the day before in the street, where I met her walking with a feeble and distorted step. My continued cries, and screams, and shrieks were, for a moment, stopped by seeing the dread and anguish of a poor lad, about thirteen years of age, who was, by force, dragged down, and compelled to touch this dead body in three places, the chin, the little finger, and the upper eyelid, that he might be cured of a deplorable scrofula, or king's evil, under which he had, for a considerable period, laboured. The sight of his sufferings took off my attention from myself; all my feelings were absorbed in pity for him, till, when he was gone, my fears returned with redoubled force, and my cries were repeated with reiterated vigour. Some of the mob, at length, recognizing whose child I was, carried me home, where the terror, so strongly depicted on my countenance, excited considerable alarm, and no less com