[COYNE] RICHARD MAURICE BUCKE— A SKETCH 161 



don Eiehard Talbot ^ had taken up land twenty years before, and settle- 

 inent had proceeded apace. His son, E. A. Talbot, was one of a 

 number of writers by whom the praises of the Talbot Settlement were 

 sounded in books which were extensively circulated in the Britisli 

 Islands. 



To the township of London Mr. Bucke proceeded with his family 

 to spy out the land, if it was good. 



At the forks of the Thames the town of London had already more 

 ihan twelve hundred inhabitants, ministered to by five churches, seven 

 taverns and three or four schools. Two or three miles east, on Dundas 

 Street, was a farm which caught our immigrant's fancy. He purchased 

 it and settled down to the life of a pioneer farmer, A scholar and lin- 

 guist, he had brought with him a library of several thousand volumes, 

 in which no less than seven languages were represented. Here in the 

 midst of the primeval forest he installed his family and his books; 

 here three children were born to him ; and here, in the gradually widen- 

 ing clearing he passed the remaining years of his life. The property, 

 known afterwards as the Creek Farm, is now the site of the village of 

 Fottersburg, a suburb of the city of London. 



The Reverend Mr. Bucke was master of seven languages: Latin, 

 Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish and English. The edu- 

 cation of his six sons was, however, left largely to chance. That is 

 to say, he taught each of them to read in one or more languages, 

 and then, turning them loose in his library, left them to shift for 

 themselves. But, to use Maurice's own words, '' they were born with 

 the desire to know, and with the instinct to find out." Each was 

 thenceforward his own schoolmaster. Of the six sons, three became 

 phvsicians and one a la^Ayer. The eldest brother, George Walpole, ^ 

 died comparatively young. 



"Maurice learned Latin from his father. Browsing among the 

 thousands of books, breathing their atmosphere, he became saturated 

 with literature of wide range and varied character. A better foundation 

 could hardly have been laid for his professional and literary life-work, 

 which was to demand a comprehensive knowledge of the mental and 

 moral nature of man. 



* Not to be confounded with Colonel the Honourable Thomas Talbot, 

 founder of the Talbot Settlement, which included twenty-eight townships 

 in whole or in part. 



= The following entry in the family Bible is of historical interest: 

 "George Walpole, born Milden Hall. County Norfolk, 14 June, 1828; inocu- 

 lated 28 February, 1829; recovered from the small-pox, 21 March, 1829." 



