NE WFO UNDLAND. 35 



"in countenance as unsuspicious in mind; — the very 

 "quaintness of the costume in which I had been sent 

 " forth from the parental nest told what a yokel I was. 

 "A surtout coat of snuff-brown hue, reaching to my 

 " ankles, and made out of a worn great-coat of my 

 " uncle Gosse's which had been given to mother, 

 " enveloped my somewhat sturdy body ; for I was 



" ' Totus, teres, atque rotundus ;' 

 " while my intellectual region rejoiced in the protection 

 " of a white hat (forsooth !) somewhat battered in sides 

 " and crown, and manifestly the worse for wear. Such 

 " was I in outward guise : the idea of a witticism or 

 " repartee, made hot. on the occasion, had never entered 

 " my noddle ; but then, had I not in my chest those 

 " manuscript pages of stale jests, which I had toilfully 

 " copied out of the Joe Miller, with which I expected to 

 "take captive the laugh of the office? What wonder 

 " that I became immediately the butt of so keen an 

 " archer as St. John, the inviting centre about which the 

 "flashes of his sparkling wit constantly coruscated 

 " until at length, by the very inhalation of the 

 "atmosphere, I learned gradually to play the same 

 " game, and to pay him back with his own weapons ? 



"Intellectually I think we were pretty much on a 

 " par. We were both readers, but possibly I had read 

 " more books than he ; I had learned Latin at school, he 

 " French ; my slight knowledge of natural history was 

 " balanced by his acquaintance with chemistry, mainly 

 u acquired from Parkes's Chemical Catechism, which I 

 " had been used to see at John Brown's. But then he 

 " was a poet ; at least, he had the art of versification, 

 " which, however, he chiefly exercised in semi-doggerel 

 " Hudibrastic satirical pieces. A poem of his was extant 

 " when I came, on the Methodist Missionary Meeting 



