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various handicrafts, for each of which we now employ a separate 

 workman. 



An extraordinary instance of this diversified ability, joined to 

 unwearying industry, is presented by the life of the Rev. Robert 

 Walker of Seathwaite, generally known as "wonderful Walker." 

 Although he lived in obscurity, he found a biographer in no less a 

 person than the poet Wordsworth, who gives a very interesting 

 account of him in the notes to his "Sonnets of the Duddon." The 

 parish priest, so finely delineated in "The Excursion," is also a 

 picture of wonderful Walker. He was born in 1709, and was the 

 son of a small "statesman" who lived in Seathwaite. He was the 

 youngest of twelve, and a weakly child, on which latter account 

 his father gave him what schooling he could. At the age of 

 seventeen he went to be schoolmaster at Gosforth, near Egremont, 

 and remained there two or three years ; he then removed to 

 Buttermere, where he acted both as minister and schoolmaster, 

 and received the usual small salary and "whittlegate." Before 

 and after school hours, he laboured at manual occupation. He 

 wrote his own sermons, and did duty twice on Sundays. In 

 summer he rose between three and four, and went to the field — in 

 hay-time with his scythe, in harvest-time with his sickle. He 

 ploughed, he planted, he tended sheep on the fells. At other 

 times he clipped or salved— all for hire. When engaged in these 

 employments, he would be at work long before the regular 

 labourers, and remain after they had finished their day's work. 

 Nor was he less skilful than diligent : in all such labours he 

 excelled. In winter he occupied himself in reading, writing his 

 sermons, spinning and making his own clothes and those of his 

 family (he was an excellent spinner), knitting and mending his 

 own stockings, and making his own shoes, the leather of which 

 was of his own tanning. In his walks he never neglected to 

 gather and bring home the wool from the hedges. He was the 

 physician and lawyer of his parishioners ; he drew up their wills, 

 conveyances, bonds, etc.; wrote all their letters and settled their 

 accounts, and frequently went to market with sheep or wool for 

 the farmers. The next step in his career was his removal from 



