viii ROBERT BLAKEY 



town ; and being earnestly religious, it is recorded that 

 he left behind him a copy of the Presbyterian Chapel 

 Hymn Book, written at full length by himself. Almost 

 one of the last wishes of the young father was an 

 injunction to bring up his son, the subject of this 

 Memoir, "in the Presbyterian faith." Young Blakey, 

 in truth, fell into the hands of relatives who were 

 steeped in the traditions of Presbyterianism, and was 

 nurtured, so to speak, on the Westminster Confession . 

 of Faith. He learned to read and write somehow, and 

 informs us, in his somewhat scrappy Autobiography, 

 that he had to read, " or rather stammer," through two 

 or three chapters of the Bible to his grandmother every 

 night, summer and winter. 



The little chap, from his eighth year, worked in the 

 spring and summer months in his uncle's garden for 

 sixpence a day and his victuals. In this era of demand 

 for an eight hours' day it is interesting to know that he 

 used, as a matter of course, to labour from seven or 

 eight in the morning till nine at night, and then per- 

 form his Bible-reading before going to heA. He thus 

 early enjoyed a thirst for knowledge which was never 

 quenched ; and though very little schooling fell to his 

 lot, two or three months a year being about the average 

 allotment, he mastered the three E's, and acquired the 

 habitual solace of general reading. At thirteen a 

 change took place in his prospects; he then removed 

 with his grandmother from Morpeth to Alnwick, where 

 he made the acquaintance of persons from whom he 

 derived a keen mental stimulus. The boy was intro- 

 duced to the sombre Young's Night TJioughts and 

 Milton's Paradise Lost ; the London Examiner and 

 Cobbett's Register fell, moreover, in his way — note- 

 worthy incidents, when we perceive how in after life 

 he devoted himself to politics and metaphysics. His 

 fondness for books increased with his growth. A 

 schoolmaster to whom he went in evening hours taught 

 him Euclid and Trigonometry. 



At sixteen he began, as he put it, to scribble a little, 

 and found his way into the columns of the Tyne 



