256 
HUGHES : ADAM SEDGWICK. 
strength. Gras-light, railroads, steamboats, and electric telegraph, 
are in my memory but things of yesterday. Years well remembered, 
were past in my early life before such things were so much as heard 
of ; and yet how vastly they seem to have changed the whole outer 
world of civilized Christendom.” 
The Sedgwicks belonged to that fine old race of small landed 
proprietors, ‘ statesmen,’ which is now, alas, so fast disappearing 
from even the Northern Dales. Among them the Sedgwicks held 
a prominent place, their names occurring in the register of Dent as 
far back as 1672. 
In 1756 Sedgwick’s father entered as an undergraduate at St. 
Catherine’s College, in Cambridge : .a serious business it was to get 
from Dent to Cambridge in those days. He took holy orders, 
returned to his native place and became vicar of Dent. And 
Sedgwick was born in the old vicarage, March 22nd, 1785. 
His childhood was passed amongst the hearty, straightforward 
dalesmen, and he was a general favourite with them all. He delight- 
ed in every kind of sport and out-door exercises, and he had always 
a quick eye for anything curious and unusual, which he might come 
across in his scrambles amongst the crags and fells which surrounded 
the valley. 
In later years he often refers to this part of his life as full of 
happy recollections. Writing from Dent, in 1860, to a friend, he 
says — “ The home scenery is delicious, and glowing at this moment 
(6-80 a.m.) with the richest light of heaven; and from the door of 
this old home of my childhood, I can look down the valley and see, 
blue in the distance, the crests of the lake mountains which rear 
their heads near the top of Windermere. All around me is endeared 
by the sweet remembrances of early life, for here I spent my child- 
hood and early boyhood, when my father and mother, three sisters, 
and three brothers were all living in this old home. Our home was 
humble, but we were a merry crew, and we were rich in health and 
rich in brotherly love.” 
Sedgwick’s education was begun under his father’s eye, in the 
old grammar school of Dent, and he afterwards went to the Sedburgh 
school, which had a high reputation, and was attended at that time 
by the sons of most of the leading statesmen, as well as by many 
i 
