O UT L I N E S O F S C E N E S A N D T H O U G H T S P E R H A P S W O R T H Y O F M E M O R Y I I N M Y PA S T L F E . H N R U K I N L L D O S . J . , H O NO RA RY S T UD E NT O F C H R I S T C HUR C H , W I N A RY F E L L F R P C H R S T I CO L L E E X . A D HO NOR O O C O US G , O FO R D VOLUM E I . WI TH S TE E L G E O R G E A L L E N N N Y I D E O R P I N G T O N K E N T . S U S , , 1 886 . W on don and le s bur P rinted b az el! ats on Vine Ld A . y H , , y, L y y P R E F A C E . ‘ HAVE written these sketches of efi b rt an d in ciden t i n former years for my frien ds ; an d for those of the public wh o have been pleased by my books . h I have written them t erefore , frankly, garrulously, and at ease ; speaking of what it gives me j oy to remember at any length I like—sometimes very carefully of what I think it may be useful for others to know ; and passing in total silence thin gs which I have no pleasure i n n an d reviewi g , which the reader would fi nd of no help in the account . My described life has thus become more vi F P R E A C E . n amusing tha I expected to myself, as I summoned its long past scenes for present : scrutiny its methods of study, and general ustifie d principles of work , I feel j in recommending to other students : and very certainly any habitual readers of my books will understand them better, for having knowledge as complete as I can give them of the personal character which , without n endeavour to conceal , I yet have ever n ow taken pains to display , and even , and then , felt some freakish pleasure in exposing to the chance of misinterpretation . I write these few prefatory words on ’ my father s birthday, in what was once — my nursery in his old house , to which h e - two brought my mother and me , sixty n years since , I bei g then four years old . What would otherwise in the following pages have been little more than an old fl owe rs fields in of youth , has taken , as I a wrote , the nobler aspect of dutiful c o fi e ring at the grave of pare n ts who trained my childhood to all the good it n could attai , and whose memory makes declining life cheerful in the hope of being soon again with them . HE R E H LL N I , I ot/z fil a 1 8 8 . y, 5 E N C O N T T S . C HA P . THE S P R INGS O F WAND EL I I H E R NE - H L L A O D B LO S S O M S . I LM N T E B A K S O F TAY III . H N V U D E R N E W TUTO R S H P S I . N I P AR NAS S US AND P LYNLI MM O N VI S C AFF AUS E AND M LAN . H H N I VI I P AP A AND A A . M MM V V E S TE R C E AE III . , AM N T E C OL D E LA FAU LL E I X . H C I UE TU E P O E E Q M , M L M N I C H R S T C UR C H X . I H H C O I R X I I R O S Y C AP E . L N H L ed mon th l but y, th en compl eted P R /E T E R I T A . I CHAPTER . T H E O F SPRI NGS WAN DEL . AM was , and my father before me , a Violent To ry of the old school ; (Walter ’ ’ Scott s school , that is to say, and Homer s , ) I name these two out of the numberless great r To y writers , because they were my own ’ tw o masters . I had Walter Scott s novels , I ’ and the liad , (Pope s translation , ) for my was only reading when I a child , on week d ays : on Sundays their effect was tempered by Robinson Crusoe and the Pilgrim ’ s Pro g ress ; my mother having it deeply in her h eart to make an evangelical clergyman of 2 I T H E O F . SPRINGS WA NDEL . l . ortunate e me F y, I had an aunt mor evangelical than my mother ; and my aunt ’ u gave me cold mutton for S nday s dinner, which—as I much preferred it hot—greatly ’ diminished the infl uen ce of the Pilgrim s Progress , and the end of the matter was , th at I got all the noble imaginative teaching e t—am of Defoe and Bunyan , and y not an evangelical clergyman . I n had , however, still better teaching tha da theirs , and that compulsorily , and every y of the week . Walter Scott and Pope ’ s Homer were own r reading of my election , but my mothe forced me , by steady daily toil , to learn long chapters of the Bible by heart ; as well as a to read it every syllable through , loud , th e hard names and all , from Genesis to : t Apocalypse , about once a year and to tha — discipline patient , accurate , and resolute I owe . , not only a knowledge of the book , find which I occasionally serviceable , but much of my general power of taking pains , W 1 o r A N D E L . TH E SPRI NGS 3 and th e best part of my taste in literature . ’ rom F Walter Scott s novels I might easily , h ’ as I grew older, ave fallen to other people s le d novels ; and Pope might , perhaps , have ’ ’ me to take Johnson s English , or Gibbon s , as types of language ; but , once knowing the 2 n d 1 th th e 3 of Deuteronomy, the I 9 Psalm , th I 5 of I st Corinthians , the Sermon on the r Mount , and most of the Apocalypse , eve y wa of syllable by heart , and having always a y thinking with myself what words meant , it was not possible for me , even in the foolishest s u erficial times of youth , to write entirely p ' or formal English ; and th e afi ectation of trying to write like Hooker and George Herbert was the most innocent I could f have allen into . own n From my chosen masters , the , Scott and Homer , I learned the Toryism which — my best after thought has only served to firm con . That is to say a most sincere love of kings , and dislike of everybody who attempted to . 1 W . S RI N O F A N DE L 4 TH E P GS . in in — n rs o ar k g s, or k g lovi g pe ns , do h der work — ti on to me I obs erved that they n ot only uan ti il or rofi O f at h q ty of s po p t. l e it as s eemed to me that th e idea of a kin g has c xa l th e n ra y t i s a be ome e ct y co t r of h , and th t erson n eral v rn es s an d p s ge ly to go e l , get more, wa s a an y o y ls . So t at s th an b d e e h it , perh p , qui t e as well that in th ose ear ly days my I T H E O F . SPRINGS WANDEL . 5 contemplation of existent kingship was a very n e distant o . The aunt wh o gave me cold mutton on ’ Sundays was my fath er s sister : she lived at - h ad Bridge end , in the town of Perth , and r — a garden full of gooseber y bushes , sloping th e to down to Tay, with a door opening it — w the water, which ran past , clear bro n over the pebbles th ree or four feet deep ; f — —an infinite swi t eddying , thing for a child to look down into . My father began business as a wine merchant , with no capital , and a consider able amount of debts bequeathed him by d h H e my gran fat er . accepted the bequest , and paid them all before he began to lay by anything for himself, for which his best I friends called him a fool , and , without n n expressi g any opinio as to his wisdom , which I kn ew in such matters to be at th e least equal to mine , have written on ‘ granite slab over his grave that he was an ’ entirely honest merchant .