RECOLLECTIONS OF POVERTY. 173 



When I next visited her she resumed her narrative. " There 

 were occasions when my parents would invite the neighbouring- vil- 

 lagers to join with us in some little festivities. My birth-day was one 

 of these. It was on the evening of the day on which I had attained 

 my eleventh year that many smiling faces were seated round our 

 clean bright table. We waited only for my father's arrival that the 

 happy circle might be complete. It was late when he returned, and 

 he had lost somewhat of his wonted cheerfulness; at times he ap- 

 peared absorbed in thought, yet he joined in our pleasures as for- 

 merly. 



" Do not think, Sir, that the humble and low-born are exempt 

 from those frailties which lead away their more exalted brethren. 

 Ah, no! there is the same restless and unstable mind to all, the 

 same dissatisfaction with the present, the same eager aspirations for 

 the future. All are alike engaged in the pursuit of happiness, which, 

 like an empty phantom invested in a fairy garb, flits ever before them. 

 Now, leading them up some lofty eminence, she seems within their 

 grasp ; the next moment she hovers far beneath them. Vain is their toil- 

 some ascent. Gladly would they seek again in humility and retirement 

 that which exalted station has failed to bestow. But I wander from 

 my narrative. It may be thought incredible that my father, blessed 

 as he *was with no ordinary measure of human felicity, should have 

 bartered the many comforts we possessed for some fallacious prospect 

 of future advantage. Strange as it may appear, he did so ; and well 

 might he be in anxiety and trouble, for, unknown to his family, he 

 had concluded an engagement which tore us from our home, and was 

 the foundation of all our future misery. He had been employed at 

 the mansion of a neighbouring nobleman, and a master-workman, 

 who had come down from London to superintend some extensive al- 

 terations, struck with the beauty of some work he had executed, and 

 pleased with the ingenuity he evinced, allured him by the pro- 

 mise of high wages to go to London. Without reflection my father 

 engaged himself, and ere a week had passed we had exchanged the 

 sweet air of one of the pleasantest villages in England for the smoky 

 and foul atmosphere of the metropolis. I do not recollect that the 

 change affected me much ; I cried for a few moments as we passed 

 for the last time along the lane that leads from our cottage to the 

 high road : it was rather, I think, because my mother wept. 



" Immediately on our arrival my father was employed at a large 

 engine manufactory, and his high wages enabled him to procure us 

 many of the luxuries of life. It was my fortune also to receive an 

 education much superior to what is usually obtained by those in my 

 situation of life. It has enabled me to express myself in language 

 which seems little suited to one so wretched as I, but it has also ren- 

 dered me most acutely sensible to the long train of evils which I have 

 suffered through life. As we dwelt in a populous part of the city, 

 we had neighbours of every description of character, yet our acquaint- 

 ances were few. Accustomed to the quiet and secluded habits of a 

 country life, my mother shrank from that indiscriminate familiarity so 

 common in large towns. Close by lived a man and his wife whom 

 we sedulously avoided on account of their indolent and intemperate 



