LITERARY STRUGGLES. 153 



" My kindest wishes and most respectful regards wait on 

 " Mrs. Clarke, and my love to the dear young folks — espe- 

 " cially dear Henrietta, and William, and Charley ; and 

 " indeed Emily, too. There, I have named all ; for I 

 "can make no exception. May every happiness be 

 " yours and theirs ! 



" Believe me to be, dear Sir, 



" Kindly and sincerely yours, 



"P. H. GOSSE." 



The excuse for not accepting seems, even from his own 

 point of view, curiously inadequate. The position of curator 

 at a provincial museum is not commonly looked upon as 

 one of peculiar temptation to worldliness, and the writer 

 was, besides, reduced to a poverty so extreme, that one might 

 suppose an independent spirit, such as his, would leap at 

 any honest way of getting a livelihood. But the fact 

 appears to be that he believed himself called to the 

 ministry, and that his full intention was to become, if 

 possible, a Wesleyan preacher. His efforts in this direc- 

 tion also, however, were met with disappointment. The 

 rough discourses which had served in Alabama were not to 

 the taste of the Methodists of Liverpool. He wrote : " The 

 large and fine Wesleyan chapels of Liverpool, the fashion- 

 able attire of the audiences, and the studied refinement of 

 the discourses, so thoroughly out of keeping with my own 

 fresh and ardent feelings, distress me. I mourn over the 

 degeneracy of Methodism." And Methodism, in her turn, 

 looked very coldly at this vehement colonial critic of her 

 manners. 



Early in March, 1839, he went by railway and coach to 

 Wimborne, in Dorset, where his mother was now residing 

 with a younger son. Here Philip remained for three 

 months, taking at first a prominent place as a local 



