DAVIS: HUGH EDWIN STRICKLAND, F.R.S., ETC. 141 
childlioad. " Poor Reigliton is altered much, and chiefly for worse ; 
many tilings are fallen down and but few are built up. Speeton 
Beacon and the aged patriarch of Thorn Tree Flat still exist, though 
probably in a mutilated state. Horses and cattle run at liberty about 
the plantation behind the stables and the yard, which is overgrown 
with weeds. The plantation at the back of the kitchen garden has 
got up surprisingly. It was with difficulty I could force my way 
through the shrubs to the seat and table, both of which I found 
buried among the trees." The general tendency towards a cultivation 
of natural history and of a somewhat roving disposition are illustrated 
by the following passage from his diary: — ''A taste for natural history 
which I had acquired and which still continued unabated, was in- 
creased by a trip which our party together with Lady Strickland, her 
son Arthur, and her daughter Emma, took to Little Hampton in 
Sussex, where we spent seven weeks very agreeably in collecting shells, 
etc. h\ July I went with my father to Apperley in Gloucestershire, 
where we stayed a fortnight with my aunts, and then returned home, 
when 1 resumed my studies along with my two brothers. At the end 
of this year I was informed that it was settled that I should go to 
Oxford in three or four years' time. This was a death-blow to all my 
hopes, as I had always entertained a dread of going to college as 
being an almost inevitable cause of my taking root in England ; 
whereas I had always cherished a hope of being a sailor, or at least of 
engaging in some locomotive profession, which should oblige me to 
roam about and see the world, and this hope, though repeatedly 
smothered, had never till this final decision of my fate been totally 
extinguished, and much did I grieve to see my cousin and former play- 
fellow, George Cartwright, enter the navy, nay, to see my own 
brother and of late my almost only companion, Algernon, destined 
for the same profession, while I am doomed to spend the rest of my 
days in the capacity or rather incapacity of an English country 
gentleman." This was written in 1826, when Strickland was about 
fifteen years of age. In the Autumn of the same year, he spent some 
weeks in Lincolnshire with his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Penrose. 
The latter was the daughter of Edmund Cartwright, and was the 
authoress of the popular Histories of England, France, etc., under 
