CO ATE FARM. 27 



of a most singular and interesting country, 

 wilder than any other part of England except 

 the Peak and Dartmoor ; encouraged by his 

 father to observe and to remember ; taught by 

 him to read the Book of Nature. What better 

 beginning could the boy have had? There 

 wanted but one thing to complete his happi- 

 ness a little more ease as regards money. I 

 fear that one of the earliest things the boy 

 could remember must have been connected 

 with pecuniary embarrassment. 



While still a child, four years of age, he was 

 taken to live under the charge of an aunt, Mrs. 

 Harrild, at Sydenham. He stayed with her 

 for some years, going home to Coate every 

 summer for a month. At Sydenham he went 

 to a preparatory school kept by a lady. He was 

 then at the age of seven, but he had learned to 

 read long before. He does not seem to have 

 gained the character of precocity or excep- 

 tional cleverness at school, but Mrs. Harrild 

 remembers that he was always as a child read- 

 ing and drawing, and would amuse himself for 

 hours at a time over some old volume of 

 " Punch," or the " Illustrated London News/' 



