14 * MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. < 11 A 1'. I. 



a whole fairy-land of wonders in its ' Insect Architecture ;' its 

 ' Habits and Architecture of Birds ;' and its ' Menageries ;' 

 besides that grand boys' book, which has since been the model 

 for so many others, ' The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficul- 

 ties.' The ' Penny Magazine' was also an exhaustless treasury. 

 But, besides those, I must not forget three well-thumbed quar- 

 tos : the first edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' which, 

 with its plates on all subjects, gradually passed from being for 

 us a mere child's picture-book, to its better purpose of an un- 

 failing book of reference. But it must not be supposed that the 

 old favourites of the nursery library were forgotten. ' Jack the 

 Giant-Killer,' ' Cinderella,' ' Blue Beard,' and ' Beauty and the 

 Beast,' were never conned more lovingly than by ourselves, with 

 the aid of our eldest sister Mary, whose story-telling powers 

 were sometimes called into requisition to eke out our scanty 

 stores. 



" A small poorly printed copy of the ' Arabian Nights' Enter- 

 tainments' was also most diligently and repeatedly perused. 

 To these must be added Bunyan's ' Pilgrim,' and an illustrated 

 copy of his ' Mansoul,' in which Diabolus figured in scaly 

 dragon-like amplitude of forked tail and fiery jaws, wonderful 

 to behold. Traces of this juvenile library may be seen in 

 George's maturest writings. He delighted to draw some of his 

 liveliest sportive and quaint illustrations from his old nursery 

 favourites. 



" One other class of reading remains to be noted. Our dear 

 mother was not only fond of the poets, but was herself a writer 

 of verse. She read us into an admiration of Cowper at an early 

 age, and so delighted us with some of the anti- slavery passages 

 in his ' Task,' as well as his minor poems, that both George and 

 T, in a fit of youthful enthusiasm, renounced sugar in our tea, 

 as a practical protest against the slave-labour to which it was 

 due. An acquired taste soon rendered the sugarless tea prefer- 

 able ; but we were not sufficiently logical enthusiasts to feel at 

 all aggrieved in conscience by the bargain we made that we 

 were still to be allowed sugar with apple -dumplings I 1 Besides 



i In a letter to Mr. Godfrey Wedgwood, Etruria, Staffordshire, allusion is made to 

 liiis. "By the way, are the moulds or dies of the famous anti-slavery medallion 



