I873-] AUTOBIOGRAPH\r OF A GARDENER. 21 



drawback to me ; lie who should have been my friend proved my bitterest enemy. 

 My young friends, I say this to caution you against being too sanguine about an- 

 ticipated results, and to warn you against what you ^Yill be sure to have to en- 

 counter if you aim at making a mark in the world — the jealousy of mean-spirited 

 mediocrity. And now I will briefly tell you how I endeavoured to supplement my 

 school education. In the garden was another apprentice about twenty-four years 

 of age ; I was about fifteen. Four garden-men ; one old man, a weeder, and two 

 garden- women, — this was the regular statf. Additional men were set on, of 

 course, as required. This is how I improved my reading. 



Picture to yourselves an old shed about 7 feet high, 10 feet square, with 

 one small window. There were several fireplaces for the vineries coaled from 

 this shed— all flues then. Coal packed at one end of the shed, and a short form 

 where one could be introduced formed our dining-room chairs ; our laps were our 

 tables. I at first boarded with the head-gardener, until, as I told you before, 

 jealousy roused his ire, and he then found it was inconvenient for me to continue 

 longer in the house. It was so much additional work, indeed, for his wife and ser- 

 vant, although, dunce as I was, I used to assist his son, a little younger than myself, 

 in his school lessons. Well, it was a good thing, perhaps, after all. How unable are 

 we to calculate upon the effects of little things ! How little do we know whether, 

 when we cry out like Jacob of old, "all things are against me," they are not really 

 working for our good ! To proceed. At our breakfast and dinner hours, when 

 the scanty meal, in the rustic manner I have described, was despatched, you might 

 have seen me elevated upon my coal pulpit, and reading, at the request of the men, 

 to them from Maw and Abercrombie, or from a new serial publication of the time, 

 the name of which I now forget. This reading was varied with the continuous 

 perusal of Doddridge's 'Pvise and Progress of Eeligion in the Soul,' and when that 

 was finished, with Baxter's ' Saints' Everlasting Rest.' These latter readings were 

 specially given at the request of the old men ; and vivid is the picture now before 

 me of the frequent streaming eye and gurgling moan as my youthful voice poured 

 forth balm to aged breasts. AVell has it been said that the best way of retaining 

 knowledge is by imparting it to others. Valuable knowledge I gained in this 

 way, then, which has had a powerful influence upon me through life. Improve- 

 ment in the art of reading I made then, without for a moment suspecting that I 

 was benefiting myself. And this is the lesson I would have you to learn : *' Go," 

 as opportunity is afforded you, "and do likewise." But how was my orthog- 

 raphy improved? Why, in the first place, I believe by this very exercise in 

 reading, but in perhaps quite as great a degree by the following exercise I pre- 

 scribed to myself. I know not what led to my adopting it, but I should imagine 

 the following was somewhat instrumental : In reading to the men, I was natur- 

 ally asked the meanings of certain terms used ; and I daresay, regarded as I was 

 as an oracle of wisdom and knowledge, self-pride led me to endeavour to avoid 

 showing ignorance before my w^orshippers. That little insinuating, vanity-sup- 

 porting, yet ignoble feeling of arrogating to yourself what j^ou must know you 

 do not possess, or accepting the homage' of the Lystrians of a godhead blas- 

 phemously ascribed to you — how common to the little-minded spirit of man ! 

 "Well, I suppose it was some such feeling as this which led me, after my return- 

 ing from daily work, to go to my bedroom (I had no private study), and there, 

 with dictionary in hand, or other book of reference I may have possessed, to dis- 

 cover the meanings of difficult or scientific terms in forthcoming daily readings, 

 and having discovered them, to enter them carefully in a memorandum-book 

 provided for that purpose. Thus you see several objects were gained by this 

 eelf-prescribed course of study: I must read thoughtfully ; I must read understand- 



