HERTFORD: MY HOME LIFE 75 



moved and a considerable weight supported upon it. This 

 also was a constant source of pleasure and instruction to us, 

 and one that seems to be not now included among instruc- 

 tive toys. 



I think it was soon after we went to the Old Cross house 

 that my father became librarian to a fairly good proprietary 

 town library, to which he went for three or four hours every 

 afternoon to give out and receive books and keep everything 

 in order. After my brother John left home and I lost my 

 chief playmate and instructor, this library was a great resource 

 for me, as it contained a large collection of all the standard 

 novels of the day. Every wet Saturday afternoon I spent 

 here; and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which were our four- 

 o'clock days, I usually spent an hour there instead of stopping 

 to play or going straight home. Sometimes I helped my father 

 a little in arranging or getting down books, but I had most 

 of the time for reading, squatting down on the floor in a 

 corner, where I was quite out of the way. It was here that 

 I read all Fenimore Cooper's novels, a great many of James's, 

 and Harrison Ainsworth's " Rookwood," that fine highway- 

 man's story containing a vivid account of Dick Turpin's ride 

 to York. It was here, too, I read the earlier stories of Marryat 

 and Bulwer, Godwin's " Caleb Williams," Warren's " Diary of 

 a Physician," and such older works as " Don Quixote," 

 Smollett's " Roderick Random," " Peregrine Pickle," and 

 " Humphry Clinker," Fielding's " Tom Jones," and Miss Bur- 

 ney's " Evelina." I also read, partially or completely, Milton's 

 " Paradise Lost," Pope's " Iliad," Spenser's " Faerie Queene," 

 and Dante's " Inferno," a good deal of Byron and Scott, some 

 of the Spectator and Rambler, Southey's " Curse of Kehama," 

 and, in fact, almost any book that I heard spoken of as cele- 

 brated or interesting. At this time " Pickwick " was coming 

 out in monthly parts, and I had the opportunity of reading bits 

 of it, but I do not think I read it through till a considerably 

 later period. I heard it a good deal talked about, and it 

 occasioned quite an excitement among the masters in the 

 Grammar School. Walton's " Angler " was a favourite of 



