118 Kington St. Michael. [t/oAn Britton. 



society, and had never visited any of the wealthy mansions of the 

 great personages of the land. I certainly had been admitted into 

 the studios of a few artists, and also into the wine-cellars of Sir 

 William Chambers, in Berners Street and at Whitton Park ; and I 

 had spent two days with Mr. Scrope and his aged mother, at Castle 

 Combe, as will be noticed hereafter ; but the last event occurred 

 immediately after my emancipation from the wine-cellar, and before 

 I undertook my Quixotic journey to Plympton, already noticed, or 

 had any notion of literature as a profession. Otherwise my inter- 

 course with aristocracy and intellectual beings was as ' rare as snow 

 in June, or wheat in chaff.' It is true that I was from boyhood 

 ambitious to be in the company of my elders and superiors in 

 knowledge ; and a little of the rust and rudeness of village life and 

 menial manners had been rubbed down, if not polished, by parti- 

 ality for debating societies and private theatricals, which were 

 populai- in London at the beginning of the present century. I 

 must frankly acknowledge that I was as unfitted for commimion, 

 and unqualified to converse, with princes or nobles of the land, as 

 with Utopian autocrats or celestial monarchs. I approached the 

 house, through a lodge and park, which inspired awe and wonder; 

 I rang the bell to the domestic part of the premises with hesitation 

 and doubt ; I asked incoherent questions about the Marquis, the 

 house, &c. ; the poi'ter was perplexed and called the footman, who 

 consulted the valet, and he appealed to the butler, who good- 

 naturedly construed my meaning and wishes, and introduced me 

 to bis noble master, who was seated in a well-filled and spacious 

 library, and who appeared to my dizzy vision like something super- 

 human. Without a card, or prospectus of the work which was the 

 ostensible object of my visit, I was requested to explain who I was, 

 and what was the nature of my inquiry and intentions. Unpre- 

 pared to explain what I had no distinct notion of myself, I related 

 something of my short and uneventful career, and the reasons for 

 attempting to write about my native county ; told of my friendless 

 and forlorn circmnstances, love of reading, and the arts ; desire to 

 acquire knowledge, and qualify myself to accomplish the task I had 

 imdertakcn with some degree of credit to myself, and not discredit 



