BY D. EMULETON, M.D. 3 



All the children were at the same school. There, John was 

 quite a favourite with Miss Anna Prowitt, the younger of those 

 ladies, and there he learnt the rudiments at least of drawing. 

 Thence he went to learn arithmetic, etc., at the school of Mr. 

 Henry Atkinson, on the High Bridge, at that time the best in 

 the town. How long he attended that school, and whether he 

 ever went to any other, there is nothing to show. There can 

 be no doubt that the early education both of John and Albany 

 was only rudimentary. 



During the summer season the family would go to the seaside, 

 and John, and Mary, whom he lovingly called his ' little wife,' 

 used to wander about the banks and sandhills at Tynemouth and 

 CuUercoats, [= Culvercotes] where they discovered several in- 

 sects and plants new to them, and were constantly together. 

 Similarly Joshua and Miss Alder were loving companions, and 

 in each case death only separated them. 



At home during the long winter evenings they had large 

 social gatherings — scenes of pure and mirthful enjoyment, as 

 was related in the Notice of the Life of Joshua Alder, in Yol. I. 

 of the Nat. Hist. Trans, of Northumb. and Durham, p. 324. 

 They had private theatricals, puppet shows, games, and dances. 

 John was often the life and soul of the party, and used, after 

 the elders had retired, to dance about grotesquely in the exuber- 

 ance of his spirits ; he paid much attention to the little ones — 

 young wallflowers whom he thought neglected or shy; was very 

 sensitive himself, and keenly alive to dangers threatening others ; 

 was enthusiastic and passionate, and both he and Albany were 

 early accurate observers of the forms and colours of objects. 



After leaving school he joined his oldest brother Thomas, who 

 became the business man of the family, though he also had 

 inherited a love of Natural History, at the shop at the Bridge 

 end ; but after a time finding, like Joshua Alder and his brother 

 Albany, business to be irksome, and longing for freedom to 

 follow the bent of his mind, he entered into an arrangement 

 with Thomas that he might quit the shop for ever. From that 

 time up to 1826 we know little of him except that he was ab- 

 sorbed in his favourite pursuit of plants, insects, shells, and 



