specimens!  How we gloried in our collections!  But it has all passed away; no chord is touched.”  To some, who think of the Dean as the reverend, pious, grave, even melancholy man, these youthful reminiscences may appear unnatural, even unworthy.  I must own that there breaks out now and then in his journal something which shows that he himself was not satisfied with many of these juvenile memoranda, as if they showed unfitting occupation and education of a young clergyman.  But that was not their real nature.  Those small studies and accomplishments took the place in his early training which the cricket-match or the boat-race now take in the school time of Young England.  The Dean speaks somewhat contemptuously—­“Here I got a smattering of astronomy,” and again of his studies of cryptogamics and botany; but he nevertheless felt the full benefit of such accomplishments.  His music, his passion for rural and especially Highland scenery, the enjoyments of society, the love of seeing others happy, the joining of happiness with goodness, made the Dean what he was in after life, and enabled him to take that position amongst his countrymen which a purely theological upbringing would not have done.

But now our young cleric was to put away childish things, and to take upon him the duty of his high calling.  He was ordained at Wells, and officiated for the first time as curate of Rodden, near Frome, Somerset, on Christmas day 1816.

Rodden is a very small village, of one or two farms and some labourers’ cottages, nestling round the little church, with a few, very few, outlying houses or farms.  It lies among meadows on each side of the rivulet which runs through the village.  One of the outlying houses is “Styles Hill,” inhabited by one family of the Sheppards, all of whom soon became dear friends of the Dean.  Another was the “Pear-tree” Cottage, an uninteresting red brick house, where Mr. Rogers provided a residence for the young curate.  The incumbent of the parish, when Ramsay went there, was the Rev. John Methwen Rogers of Berkley, who was non-resident.  The duties of Rodden were too small to employ his whole time, and in the following year (1817) Ramsay became curate also of Buckland Dinham, the rector of which was non-resident and lived at a distance, so that the curate had the sole charge of the parish.  In his work at Buckland, Ramsay took great delight, and soon won the hearts of his people, although many of them were Wesleyan Methodists of the old type[3].  But it was not only amongst the peasantry that Ramsay was beloved.  All the upper and middle classes in his own little parishes, and through the whole valley, regarded him with strong esteem and affection, and amongst them were persons whose character, and even whose little peculiarities of language, he caught and remembered.  One of these, a retired Captain Balne, although he failed in prevailing on the young clergyman to take a glass of grog, his own favourite cure for all ailments, was pleased when the curate