after dinner, to toast the king in a glass of the best sherry, and drink destruction to the French, when we were at war with them; and on a saturday, he kept up a custom in his family of toasting husbands, wives, and sweethearts.

My mother was a passive and amiable woman, with engaging manners and great personal beauty. It was happy for my father, that he was united to one who could always lay the ghost of an evil spirit. Though he was what the world might fairly call a good-humoured man, yet he sometimes indulged in violent bursts of passion, which swept every thing before him like the western hurricane. I have seen his cheek redden, his dark brow lower, his eyes gather fire, and his whole frame writhing, just before he gave utterance to deep bass tones of indignation, scorn, or reproof, that made even the animals around him to tremble. Any reflection offered in conversation, or reported from the lips of another, or found in the page of a periodical, casting reproach on the venerable establishment where his father worshipped, or on the land consecrated by the dust of his ancestors, instantly excited his indignation; and the latter especially awoke in his mind the most martial feelings. My mother's gentle spirit usually allayed the storm. The waves of passion subsided in a moment,

and he generally ended with some loyal excla mation, one of which he greatly admired

"England, with all thy faults, I love thee still!"

He always enscrapes of any say, "We must He was kind and

My uncle was an easy man. joyed himself, never got into kind, and was accustomed to take the world as we find it." benevolent to all; never resented injuries, and if he had an enemy, never made one. My father would present his front to the storm, and battle with it, my uncle would turn his back and say, "Let it wear itself out!" My father's hospitable table was open to all his neighbours, and thorough-bred sportsmen and gallant yeomen often partook of his festivities. My uncle loved a friend in quiet, and though his table was less splendid, his benevolence was far greater. My father, too, had not a niggard's heart, but his liberality assumed a different form. He was at the head of a long list of subscribers for equipping a regiment of volunteers; and on one occasion, when an officer of rank perished in the battle-field, he was the first to start a monument to his memory, towards which he contributed a good round sum, the departed hero having been born in the parish where he resided. My uncle thought of none of these things. He sought

out the widow and the fatherless, with the most kindly feeling contributed to their relief, and never turned away his ear from the tale of woe. In a word, my father was what is generally termed a hearty fellow," and my uncle "a kind-hearted fellow."

Myself and brother differed in age scarcely one year, he having been born when I was eleven months old. Thus we grew up together in the nursery. Our early propensities, however, manifested as striking a difference between us as existed between my father and uncle. My brother partook of the resemblance of my mother in person, form, and disposition. Every one saw, at a glance, that I was my father's son. As I grew up, I acquired his spirit and habits, and he used jocosely to say, that I was "a chip of the old block." My poor brother Charles received no such compliment. But to make amends for this misfortune, he was his mother's care. His tender and affectionate heart found an associate in her's, and my father often laughed at his "girl-boy," and would sing to a tune of his own making,

"There never yet was found a mother

Would give her booby for another."

My brother's infant pride would sometimes rise

at this half sneer, and he would say, No, I am not a booby." "Then," said my father, "you are a great baby." And I, strutting around, and holding my head erect, would look boldly at him and add," and I, pa, am a man.”

Charles was fond of rearing chickens, young birds, and rabbits, and when the fowls of his brood, or his rabbits, were sentenced to die, his distress at their loss was a complete counterbalance to his pleasure in rearing them. He had also great delight in nursing a pet lamb, or a kid, and feeding a squirrel, or a dormouse. My pleasure was more in plaguing whatever came into my hands, that had life. When a child, I stuck pins through ranks of flies, to make them draw in a body, and tortured the cockchafer in spinning, having, like Entomologists, an idea that insects had no feeling; and I even, on one occasion, deliberately took my mother's scissors and cropped the ears, and cut off the tail, of an unfortunate kitten. When I became older, I robbed all the birds' nests within my reach, whether containing eggs or young ones, harassed the poor cats by confining their bodies under my arm, head hindmost, and playing what I called the organ on their tails, which, as I pinched and twisted round, caused the poor animals to set up a hideous squall; and not a tame dog of the

neighbourhood would approach me a second. time, for few had escaped my hands without having a tin kettle tied to their tails. My mother often reproved me for my cruelty, but my father viewed all these vicious propensities as the harmless qualities of a daring boy, and upheld me in all that I did.

These little incidents are often characteristic of future years. They exhibit the germ of character; they are the spring-blossoms by which we may decide respecting the after-fruit.

Charles was, moreover, the darling of his uncle. He certainly claimed his love, because he was one of the most amiable boys I ever knew, and his quiet disposition was more in harmony with that of my uncle than was mine. My uncle loved Botany, and he delighted to ramble with him in the fields and gather the wild flowers, and soon learned to distinguish and admire the different classes and orders as arranged in the Linnæan system, and to mark the delicacy of the stamen, the fine tinge of the petal, or the glowing green of the leaf. How often have I heard my uncle expatiate mildly and pleasantly on the works of what he used to designate Nature's carpet, and quote the language of Young

"Who can paint like nature?"