The gipsies departed for England.  I was now sixteen, and continued in the house of my parents, passing my time chiefly in philological pursuits.  But it was high time that I should adopt some profession.  My father would gladly have seen me enter the Church, but feared I was too erratic.  So I was put to the law, but while remaining a novice at that pursuit, I became a perfect master of the Welsh language.  My father soon began to feel that he had made a mistake in the choice of a profession for me.

My elder brother, who had cultivated a great taste for painting, told me one evening that father had given him L150 and his blessing, and that he was going to London to improve himself in his art.

My father was taken ill with severe attacks of gout, and, in a touching conversation, assured me that his end was approaching.  Before that sad event happened, my brother, whom he longed to see, arrived home.  My father died with the name of Christ on his lips.  The brave old soldier, during intervals between his attacks, had told me more of his life than I had ever learned before, and I was amazed to find how much he knew and had seen.  He had talked with King George, and had known Wellington, and was the friend of Townshend, who, when Wolfe fell, led the British grenadiers against the shrinking regiments of Montcalm.

II.—­An Adventure with a Publisher

One damp, misty March morning, I dismounted from the top of a coach in the yard of a London inn.  Delivering my scanty baggage to a porter, I followed him to a lodging prepared for me by an acquaintance.  It consisted of a small room in which I was to sit, and a smaller one still in which I was to sleep.

Having breakfasted comfortably by a good fire, I sallied forth and easily found my way to the place I was in quest of, for it was scarcely ten minutes’ walk distant.  I was cordially received by the big man to whom some of my productions had been sent by a kind friend, and to whom he had given me a letter of introduction, which was respectfully read.  But he informed me that he was selling his publishing business, and so could not make use of my literary help.  He gave me counsel, however, especially advising me to write some evangelical tales, in the style of the “Dairyman’s Daughter.”  As I told him I had never heard of that work, he said:  “Then, sir, procure it by all means.”  Much more conversation ensued, during which the publisher told me that he purposed continuing to issue once a month his magazine, the “Oxford Review,” and to this he proposed that I should attempt to contribute.  As I was going away he invited me to dine with him on the ensuing Sunday.

On Sunday I was punctual to my appointment with the publisher.  I found that for twenty years he had taken no animal food and no wine.  After some talk he requested me to compile six volumes of Newgate lives and trials, of a thousand pages each, the remuneration to be L50 at the completion of the work.  I was also to make myself generally useful to the “Review,” and, furthermore, to translate into German a book of philosophy which he had written.  Then he dismissed me, saying that, though he never went to church, he spent much of every Sunday afternoon alone, musing on the magnificence of Nature and the moral dignity of man.