V] HERTFORD: MY HOME-LIFE 75 



light centre, showing beautifully the principle of the arch, and 

 how, when the keystone was inserted the centre supports 

 could be removed 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 

 instructive 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 after- 

 noon I spent there ; 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. Some- 

 times 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 " Rook- 

 wood," that fine highwayman'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 Burney'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 celebrated 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 



