1817-32. BOOKS AT COMMAND. 13 



and occupied a prominent place in the little museum which we 

 were already forming. The gathering of fossils, minerals, shells, 

 insects, gall-nuts, skeleton-leaves, and miscellaneous relics of 

 all sorts, for our collection, as well as the commencement of a 

 herbarium, gave new interest to our holiday rambles ; and a 

 folio copy of the Journal of George Fox, the founder of Quaker- 

 ism, which was converted to our use as blotter and press for 

 the botanical specimens, suffered wofully in the service of our 

 hortus siccus. 



" The library at our command was, for the most part, little 

 suited to juvenile students. The death of an uncle, the Eev. 

 John Eussell, of Muthil, and soon after of his widow, led to the 

 addition to our family circle, in 1827, of four cousins, John, 

 Catharine, James, and Alexander, who grew up with us thence- 

 forth as brothers and sister. But time has wrought with them, 

 as with our earlier fireside companions, and only one now sur - 

 vives, the Eev. Alexander Eussell, of Adelaide, South Australia. 

 We have both thought in later years of Mrs. Hemans' ' Graves 

 of a Household/ as the old playmates have scattered to England, 

 Canada, and Australia ; never, alas ! to gather together again. 

 The addition of our orphan cousins to our number was accom- 

 panied by that of their father's library, an imposing collection 

 of ponderous old folios, and little dumpy vellum-bound quartos 

 of sound divinity, the very outsides of which had a learned, 

 orthodox look about them. They were little likely to furnish 

 the favourite reading of boys. Nevertheless, they were occa- 

 sionally dipped into, and even the mere handling of such vener- 

 able tomes, and familiarity with their old type, quaint title- 

 pages, or more curious colophons, were not without influence in 

 the forming of tastes, and the impressions survived till the time 

 when the rich stores of the University and Advocates' Libraries 

 came to be within our reach, and even the reading-room of the 

 British Museum was not unfamiliar to us. 



" Certain books of our own smaller library, however, were 

 greatly more influential in giving a bias to youthful tastes and 

 studies. A copy of Goldsmith's 'Animated Nature,' in four 

 octavo volumes, I specially remember. At a somewhat later 

 date the ' Library of Entertaining Knowledge' opened up to us 



