THE VILLAGE : IN AND ABOUT IT 137 



eye fell upon a little book in a bookseller's window, on the 

 outside of which was written : " Tale of a Tub ; price 3d.'" 

 The title was so odd that my curiosity was excited. I 

 had the three pence, but, then I could have no supper. In 

 I went, and got the little book, which I was so impatient 

 to read, that I got over into a field at the upper corner 

 of Kew Gardens, where there stood a haystack. On the 

 shady side of this, I sat down to read. The book was so 

 different from anything I had ever read before : it was 

 something so neiv to my mind, that, though I could not 

 at all understand some of it, it delighted me beyond 

 description ; and it produced what I have always con- 

 sidered a sort of birth of intellect. I read on till it was 

 dark, without any thought about supper or bed. When I 

 could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket, 

 and tumbled down by the side of the stack, where I slept 

 till the birds in Kew Gardens awaked me in the morning ; 

 when off I started to Kew, reading my little book. The 

 singularity of my dress, the simplicity of my manner, my 

 confident and lively air, and, doubtless his own compassion 

 besides, induced the gardener, who was a Scotsman, I 

 remember, to give me victuals, find me lodging, and set 

 me to work. 



In his fragmentary reminiscence of that 

 experience, Cobbett does not say how long he 

 stayed at Kew ; but we presently find him at 

 home again, soon to set out on further escapades. 

 He tells us how the boy princes, attracted by 

 the oddity of his dress, stopped to laugh at him 

 as he was sweeping the grass round the Pagoda. 

 I have somewhere read a story that King George 



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