136 KEW GARDENS 



could hardly have entered his teens, though the 

 date is not made clear in his story, when a 

 gardener came that way who had just left the 

 King's Gardens at Kew, and gave such a glowing 

 account of them that nothing would serve the 

 boy but setting off to seek a place there. This 

 was not a lad to let the grass grow under his 

 feet, when he had a purpose in mind ; and he at 

 once left an episcopal service in hand for a royal 

 one in the bush. It was William Cobbett, who 

 now made his first acquaintance with the writings 

 of an old sojourner in his own country nook, the 

 sullen dependent of Sir William Temple at Moor 

 Park, Jonathan Swift, whose downright diction 

 this boy lived to copy through his long series of 

 Political Registers. 



The next morning, without saying a word to anyone, off 

 I set ; with no clothes except those upon my back, and with 

 thirteen halfpence in my pocket. I found that I must go 

 to Richmond, and I accordingly went on, from place to 

 place, inquiring my way thither. A long day (it was in 

 June) brought me to Richmond in the afternoon. Two 

 pennyworth of bread and cheese and a pennyworth of 

 small beer, which I had on the road, and one halfpenny 

 that I had lost somehow or other left three pence in my 

 pocket. With this for my whole fortune, I was trudging 

 through Richmond, in my blue smock-frock and my red 

 garters tied under my knees, when staring about me, my 



