WILLIAM SMITH. 23/ 



old, it was fortunate for him that his mother 

 was a woman of ability, of gentle and charitable 

 disposition, and attentive to the education of her 

 children. An expressive pencil sketch and a cha- 

 racteristic description, both from memory, record 

 his devotion to his mother. 



According to his own account, however, not only 

 were the means of his instruction at the village 

 school very limited, but they were in some degree 

 interfered with by his own wandering and musing 

 habits. The rural games in those " merrie daies " 

 of England might sometimes attract the wayward 

 and comparatively unrestrained scholar from his 

 books ; but he was more frequently learning of 

 another mistress, and forming, for after-life, a habit 

 of close and curious contemplation of nature. 



After his father's death and his mother's second 

 marriage, the person to whom he was principally 

 to look up to for protection, was his father's eldest 

 brother, to a portion of whose property he was 

 heir. From this kinsman, who was but little 

 pleased with his nephew's love of collecting the 

 '* pundibs " * and " poundstones," or " quoit- 

 stones,"! and had no sympathies with his fancies of 

 carving sun-dials on the soft brown " oven-stone " J 

 of the neighbourhood, he with great difficulty 

 wrung, by repeated entreaty, money for the pur- 

 chase of a few books fit to instruct a boy in the 



* Terebratulae. 



t A large Echinite {Clypetis sitiuatus of Leske), not unfrequently 

 employed as a "pound-weight " by the dairywomen. 

 % Named from its frec^uent use in the construction of ovens. 



