that he would be able to earn a livelihood by bodily labour.  At that period few of these dales were furnished with schoolhouses; the children being taught to read and write in the chapel; and in the same consecrated building, where he officiated for so many years both as preacher and schoolmaster, he himself received the rudiments of his education.  In his youth he became schoolmaster at Loweswater; not being called upon, probably, in that situation, to teach more than reading, writing, and arithmetic.  But, by the assistance of a ‘Gentleman’ in the neighbourhood, he acquired, at leisure hours, a knowledge of the classics, and became qualified for taking holy orders.  Upon his ordination, he had the offer of two curacies:  the one, Torver, in the vale of Coniston,—­the other, Seathwaite, in his native vale.  The value of each was the same, viz., five pounds per annum:  but the cure of Seathwaite having a cottage attached to it, as he wished to marry, he chose it in preference.  The young person on whom his affections were fixed, though in the condition of a domestic servant, had given promise, by her serious and modest deportment, and by her virtuous dispositions, that she was worthy to become the helpmate of a man entering upon a plan of life such as he had marked out for himself.  By her frugality she had stored up a small sum of money, with which they began house-keeping.  In 1735 or 1736, he entered upon his curacy; and, nineteen years afterwards, his situation is thus described, in some letters to be found in the Annual Register for 1760, from which the following is extracted:—­

’To MR. ——. 
’Coniston, July 26, 1754.

’Sir,—­I was the other day upon a party of pleasure, about five or six miles from this place, where I met with a very striking object, and of a nature not very common.  Going into a clergyman’s house (of whom I had frequently heard), I found him sitting at the head of a long square table, such as is commonly used in this country by the lower class of people, dressed in a coarse blue frock, trimmed with black horn buttons; a checked shirt, a leathern strap about his neck for a stock, a coarse apron, and a pair of great wooden-soled shoes plated with iron to preserve them (what we call clogs in these parts), with a child upon his knee, eating his breakfast; his wife, and the remainder of his children, were some of them employed in waiting upon each other, the rest in teasing and spinning wool, at which trade he is a great proficient; and moreover, when it is made ready for sale, will lay it, by sixteen or thirty-two pounds’ weight, upon his back, and on foot, seven or eight miles, will carry it to the market, even in the depth of winter.  I was not much surprised at all this, as you may possibly be, having heard a great deal of it related before.  But I must confess myself astonished with the alacrity and the good humour that appeared both in the clergyman and his wife, and more so at the sense and ingenuity of the clergyman himself...’