declared that I was after his own heart, for I had the devil in me-said that I had the right spirit to bring me to the gallows, and he hoped, old as he was, to live to see it: he then entreated of-the Lord that my precious soul might be saved as a burning brand out of the fire-took me by the hand and led me to the next gin-shop-made me taste the nauseating poison-told me I was a little man, and it was glorious to fight-doubled up for me my puny fists, and asserted that cowards only suffered a blow without returning it. A lesson like this never can be forgotten. I ground my teeth whilst I was receiving it-I clenched my hands, and looked wildly round for something to destroy. I was in training to become a little tiger. From what I then experienced, I can easily conceive the feelings that actuate, and can half forgive the crowned monsters who have revelled in blood, and relished the inflicting of torture; as pandering to their worst passions in infancy resolves them into a terrible instrument of cruelty, the control of which rests not with themselves. But this lesson in tiger ferocity had its emollient, though not its antidote, in the tenderness of the love which I bore my nurse, when, on my return, I flung myself into her arms. Ever since that day I have been subject to terrific fits of passion; but very happily for me, they have long ceased to be but of very rare occurrence.

The next morning master Joseph came home ill, and if not humbled, at least almost helpless. He had now three children of his own, and the necessity of eschewing skittles, and presiding over the sawpit, became urgent. With all his vices and his roughness, he was surprisingly fond of me. He too, applauded my spirit in attacking himself. He now rejoiced to take me to the sawpit, to allow me to play about the timber-yards, and share with him his al fresco mid-day meal and pot of porter. I always passed for his eldest son, my name being told to the neighbours as Ralph Rattlin Brandon. I knew no otherwise, and my foster parents kept the secret religiously. At seven I began to fight with dirty little urchins in the street, who felt much scandalized at the goodness of my clothes. It is hard work fighting up hill at seven years of age. Old Ford would wipe the blood from my nose, and clap the vinegar and brown paper on my bruises with words of sweet encouragement; though he always ended by predicting that his hopeful godson would be hung, and that he should live to see it. I have certainly not been drowned yet, though I have had my escapes, and old Ford has been dead these thirty years. As one part of the prophecy will certainly never be fulfilled, I have some faint hopes of avoiding the exaltation hinted at in the other.

About this time, I began to notice that a lady, at long intervals, came to see me. She seemed exceedingly happy in my caresses, though she showed no weakness. She passed for my godmother, and so she certainly was. She was minute in her examination in ascertaining that I was perfectly clean; and always brought me a number of delicacies which were invariably devoured immediately after her departure, by me and those little cormorants my loving foster brothers and sister. Moreover, my nurse always received a present, which she very carefully and dutifully concealed from her liege lord of the pits. However, I cannot call to my mind more than four of these "angelic visits" altogether. "Angelic visits," indeed, they might be termed, if the transcendent beauty of the visiter be regarded. At that time, her form and her countenance furnished me with the idea I had of the blessed inhabitants of heaven before man was created, and I have never been able to replace it since by any thing more beautiful. The reader shall soon know how, at that very early age, I became so well acquainted with angelic lore.

At eight years of age I was sent to school. I could read before I went there. How I picked up this knowledge I never could discover. Both my foster parents were grossly illiterate. Perhaps old Ford taught me but this is one of the mysteries I could never solve, and it is strange that I should have so totally forgotten all about an affair so important, as not to remember a single lesson, and yet to hold so clear a recollection of many minor events. But so it is. To school I went: my master was a cadaverous, wooden-legged man, a disbanded soldier, and a disciplinarian, as well as an a-b-c-darian.

I well remember old Isaacs, and his tall, handsome, cranenecked daughter. The hussy was as straight as an arrow, yet, for the sake of coquetry, or singularity, she would sit in the methodist chapel, with her dimpled chin resting upon an iron hoop, and her finely formed shoulders, braced back with straps so tightly, as to thrust out in a remarkable manner her swanlike chest, and her almost too exuberant bust. This instrument for the distorted, with its bright crimson leather, thus pressed into the service of the beautiful, had a most singular and exciting effect upon the beholder. I have often thought of this girl in my maturer years, and confess that no dress that I ever beheld gave a more piquant interest to the wearer, than those straps and irons. The jade never wore them at home. Perhaps the fancy was her father's, he being an old soldier, and his motto "eyes right! dress!" Whosever fancy it was, his daughter rejoiced in it. "Eyes right! dress!" is as good a motto for the ladies as the army and well do they act up to it.

The most important facts that my mind has preserved concerning this scholastic establishment are-that one evening, for a task, I learned perfectly by heart the two first chapters of the Gospel according to St. John; that there was an unbaked gooseberry pie put prominently on the shelf in the school-room, a fortnight before the vacation at Midsummer, to be partaken of on the happy day of breaking up, each boy paying fourpence for his share of the mighty feast. There were between forty and fifty of us. I had almost forgotten to mention, that I was to be duly punished whenever I deserved it, but the master was, on no account, to hurt me, or make me cry. I deserved it regularly three or four times a day, and was as regularly horsed once. Oh! those floggings, how deceptive they were, and how much I regretted them when I came to understand the thing fundamentally. Old Isaacs could not have performed the operation more delicately, if he were only brushing a fly off the down of a lady's cheek. He never made me cry.

CHAPTER VI.

This chapter showeth, in a methodical manner, how to find a faith and lose all religion; also, to procure a Call for persons of all manner of callings.

I HAD, as I have related, been encouraged in fits of passion, and had been taught to be pugnacious; my mind was now to be opened to loftier speculations; and religious dread, with all the phantoms of superstition in its train, came like a band of bravoes, and first chaining down my soul in the awe of stupefaction, ultimately loosened its bonds, and sent it to wander in all its childish wildness in the direful realms of horrible dreams, and of waking visions hardly less so. I was fashioning for a poet.

My nurse was always a little devotional. She went to the nearest chapel or church, and, satisfied that she heard the word of God, without troubling herself with the niceties of any peculiar dogma, which she could not have understood if she had, and finding herself on the threshold of divine grace, she knelt

never.

down in all humility, prayed, and was comforted. Old Ford was a furious Methodist; he owned that he never could reform; and, as he daily drained the cup of sin to the very dregs, he tried, as an antidote, long prayer, and superabounding faith. The unction with which he struck his breast, and exclaimed, "Miserable sinner that I am!" could only be exceeded by the veracity of the assertion. Mrs. Brandon only joined in the prayer meetings that he held at our house, when Ford himself was perfectly sober-thus she did not often attend-Brandon Whilst he wore the top-boots, he was an optimist, and perfectly epicurean in his philosophy-I use the term in the modern sense. When he had eighty pounds odd a-year, with no family of his own, no man was more jovial or happier. He had the most perfect reliance on Providence. He boasted, that he belonged to the Established Church, because it was so respectable and he loved the organ. However, he never went in the forenoon because he was never shaved in time; in the afternoon he never went, because he could not dispense with his nap after dinner; and, in the evening, none but the serving classes were to be seen there. He ridiculed the humble piety of his wife, and the fanatical fervour of his lodger. He was a high churchman, and satisfied. But when he was obliged, with an increasing family and a decreased income, to work from morning till night, he grew morose, and very unset

tled in his faith.

The French Revolution was then at its wildest excess. Equality was universally advocated in religious, as well as political establishments. The excitement of the times reached even to the sawpit. Brandon got tipsy one Saturday with a parcel of demagogues, and, when he awoke early next Sunday morning-it was a beautiful summer day-he made the sudden discovery that he had still his faith to seek for. Then began his dominical pilgrimages. With his son Ralph in his hand, he roved from one congregation to another over the vast metropolis, and through its extensive environs. I do not think that we left a single place, dedicated to devotion, unvisited. I well remember that he was much struck with the Roman Catholic worship. We repeated our visits three or four times to the Catholic chapel, a deference we paid to no other. The result of this may be easily imagined. When an excited mind searches for food, it will be satisfied with the veriest trash, provided only that it intoxicates. We at length stumbled upon a small set of mad Methodists, more dismal and more excluding than even Ford's sect: the congregation were all of the very lowest class, with about twelve or thirteen exceptions, and those were de

cidedly mad. The pastor was an arch rogue, that fattened upon the delusion of his communicants. They held the doctrine of visible election, which election was made by having a callthat is, a direct visitation of the Holy Ghost, which was testified by falling down in a fit-the testification being the more authentic, if it happened in full congregation. The elected could never again fall: the sins that were afterwards committed in their persons were not theirs-it was the evil spirit within them, that they could cast out when they would, and be equally as pure as before. All the rest of the world, who had not had their call, were in a state of reprobation, and on the high road to damnation.

All this, of course, I did not understand till long afterwards, but I too unhappily understood, or at least fancied I did, the dreadful images of eternal torments, and the certainty that they would soon be mine. First of all, either from inattention, or from want of comprehension, these denunciations made but a faint impression upon me. But the frightful descriptions took, gradually, a more visible and sterner shape, till they produced effects that proved all but fatal.

The doctrines of these Caterians just suited the intellect and the strong passions of Brandon. The sect was called Caterians, after the Rev. Mr. Cate, their minister. My foster-father went home, after the second Sunday, and put his house in order. As far as regarded the household, the regulations would have pleased Sir Andrew Agnew: the hot joint was dismissed-the country walk discontinued-at meeting four times a day. Even Ford did not like it. Brandon was labouring hard for his call. He strove vehemently for the privilege of sinning with impunity. He was told by Mr. Cate that he was in a desperate way. Brandon did all he could, but the call would not come for the calling. Mrs. Brandon got it very soon, though she strenuously denied the honour. My good nurse was in the family way, and Mr. Cate had frightened her into fits, with a vivid delineation of the agonies of a new-born infant, under the torture of eternal fire, because it had died unelected. However, Brandon began a little to weary of waiting and long prayer, and perhaps of the now too frequent visits of Mr. Cate. He commenced to have his fits of alternate intemperate recklessness, and religious despondency. One Sunday morning, well do I recollect it, he called me up early, before seven, and I supposed, as usual, that we were going to early meeting. We walked towards the large room that was used as a chapel. We had nearly reached it, when the half-open door of an adjacent ale-house let out its vile compound of disgusting odours upon the balmy Sabbath