THE BIRKBECK INSTITUTION. 231 



poor, joined in the reckless game. During my profes- 

 sional connection with railways I endured three weeks' 

 misery. It was not defeated ambition ; it was not a 

 rejected love-suit ; it was not the hardship endured in 

 either office or field, but it was the possession of certain 

 shares which I had purchased in one of the lines then 

 afloat. The share list of the day proved the winding- 

 sheet of my peace of mind. I was haunted by the 

 Stock Exchange. Then, as now, I loved the blue span 

 of heaven ; but when I found myself regarding it 

 morning after morning, not with the fresh joy which, 

 in my days of innocence, it had brought me, but solely 

 with reference to its possible effect, through the harvest, 

 upon the share market, I became at length so savage 

 with myself, that nothing remained but to go down to 

 my brokers and put away the shares as an accursed 

 thing. Thus began and thus ended, without either 

 gain or loss, my railway gambling. 



During this arduous period of my life my old ten- 

 dencies, chief among which was the desire to grow 

 intellectually, did not forsake me ; and, when railway 

 work slackened, I accepted in 1817 a post as master 

 in Queenwood College, Hampshire an establishment 

 which is still conducted with success by a worthy 

 Principal. There I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. 

 Frankland, who had charge of the chemical laboratory. 

 Queenwood College had been the Harmony Hall of the 

 Socialists, which, under the auspices of the philan- 

 thropist, Kobert Owen, was built to inaugurate the 

 Millennium. The letters 'C of M,' Commencement of 

 Millennium, were actually inserted in flint in the 

 brickwork of the house. Schemes like Harmony Hall 

 look admirable upon paper ; but inasmuch as they are 

 formed with reference to an ideal humanity, they go to 

 pieces when brought into collision with the real one. 



