As a proof of the little poetical imagination which Mr. Young brought to some of his tragic performances, I remember his saying of his dress in Cardinal Wolsey, “Well, I never could associate any ideas of grandeur with this old woman’s red petticoat.”  It would be difficult to say what his best performances were, for he had never either fire, passion, or tenderness; but never wanted propriety, dignity, and a certain stately grace.  Sir Pertinax McSycophant and Iago were the best things I ever saw him act, probably because the sardonic element in both of them gave partial scope to his humorous vein.

Not long after this we moved to another residence, still in the same neighborhood, but near the churchyard of Paddington church, which was a thoroughfare of gravel walks, cutting in various directions the green turf, where the flat tombstones formed frequent “play-tables” for us; upon these our nursery-maid, apparently not given to melancholy meditations among the tombs, used to allow us to manufacture whole delightful dinner sets of clay plates and dishes (I think I could make such now), out of which we used to have feasts, as we called them, of morsels of cake and fruit.

At this time I was about five years old, and it was determined that I should be sent to the care of my father’s sister, Mrs. Twiss, who kept a school at Bath, and who was my godmother.  On the occasion of my setting forth on my travels, my brother John presented me with a whole collection of children’s books, which he had read and carefully preserved, and now commended to my use.  There were at least a round dozen, and, having finished reading them, it occurred to me that to make a bonfire of them would be an additional pleasure to be derived from them; and so I added to the intellectual recreation they afforded me the more sensational excitement of what I called “a blaze;” a proceeding of which the dangerous sinfulness was severely demonstrated to me by my new care-takers.

Camden Place, Bath, was one of the lofty terraces built on the charming slopes that surround the site of the Aquae Solis of the Romans, and here my aunt Twiss kept a girls’ school, which participated in the favor which every thing belonging to, or even remotely associated with, Mrs. Siddons received from the public.  It was a decidedly “fashionable establishment for the education of young ladies,” managed by my aunt, her husband, and her three daughters.  Mrs. Twiss was, like every member of my father’s family, at one time on the stage, but left it very soon, to marry the grim-visaged, gaunt-figured, kind-hearted gentleman and profound scholar whose name she at this time bore, and who, I have heard it said, once nourished a hopeless passion for Mrs. Siddons.  Mrs. Twiss bore a soft and mitigated likeness to her celebrated sister; she had great sweetness of voice and countenance, and a graceful, refined, feminine manner, that gave her great advantages in her intercourse with and influence