CHILDHOOD. , 39 



tampering with the text, and, in his remarkable revision, 

 a line — 



"The aggregate of woe," 



takes the place of Campbell's (truly rather feeble) 



"That shall no longer flow ! " 



Employment at the Garlands' office came to a natural 

 end towards the close of 1826, when they found they had 

 no further use for a junior clerk. Mrs. Gosse became 

 anxious once more, and was constantly urging Philip to 

 " show himself about on the Quay," that the sight of him 

 might keep him in the mind of mercantile acquaintances. 

 But he had no liking for the babel of the Quay, and after 

 going thither he used immediately to take himself off over 

 the ferry to Ham, where he would sit for hours in one of 

 the vessels building in the shipwrights' yards, reading 

 some book which he had brought in his pocket. Friends, 

 however, would appear to have noticed him as he strolled 

 across, or else their memories needed no such refreshing, 

 for at length, as the spring of 1827 came on, the firm of 

 Messrs. Harrison, Slade, and Co. offered the lad employ- 

 ment as a clerk in their counting-house at the port of 

 Carbonear, in Newfoundland. He dreaded expatriation, 

 and this proposal did not meet with his wishes ; his 

 mother, however, promptly vetoed all objection on his 

 part, and he presently signed an agreement to go out for 

 six years to the American counting-house, on a very small 

 salary. On Sunday morning, April 22, 1827, as the bells 

 were ringing the people of Poole to church, having a 

 few days before completed his seventeenth year, Philip 

 Gosse, with a very heavy heart, slipped down the harbour 

 in a boat and climbed on board the brig Carbonear^ which 

 was lying at Stakes ready to get under way for New- 

 foundland. 



