dog comparing the sizes of two hats, and then, after a little consideration, clapping the smaller one inside the larger, so as to take them both in his mouth at once"-he stopped, looked me in the face with twinkling eyes, and then gave a shout of laughter.

"But," said I, "is not this anecdote told somewhere in a book on natural history?

"Of course it is," answered Marryat, " and many more of a like kind, which have gone down with the public. Why, Theodore Hook and I used to split our sides over inventing wonderful instances of sagacity, which we would send to a certain popular naturalist, and afterwards see vouched for in print. But I really should have thought the story of the hats a little too bad."

After this I went round the farm with him. I suppose that ploughedfields and manure-heaps and agricultural machines are interesting when one farms one's own land; but to my vitiated tastes, it seemed dull work. Marryat stood about directing and ordering; sometimes listening to a long Norfolk speech, which seemed to me to be in an unknown tongue: then walking off to a stack-yard, where a grand battue of rats was going on, and eagerly calling out "loo-loo-loo" to the dogs with the rest. Then, as a climax, he marched me off to the decoy lake, where a new pipe was being made and a new trench dug. This was an interesting sight, even to the uninitiated. The decoy man, a great rough-looking fellow in a fur cap, was a reclaimed poacher, and he looked entirely his original character. Marryat always held that reformed blackguards made the most honest servants. He had a very unmagistrate-like leniency for poaching, and having convicted this man, Barnes, of the offence, he had placed him as his gamekeeper and decoy man; and I know that he never had reason to repent his trust in him. When, years later, Marryat's son Frank went to California, Barnes declared his resolution of going with him, the which he did, and remained with him the whole time of his sojourn there.

The afternoon was now getting on; and finding that although we had breakfasted at eight we should not dine until the same hour in the evening, I proposed returning to the house. Although Marryat himself. never took anything between those two meals, he did not expect others to have the same powers of endurance, and I went in search of luncheon, leaving him still indefatigably looking after the farm.

I can think I see him now, as I look back to that time, sitting about on his dun-coloured Hanoverian pony, called Dumpling,-a name he very well deserved,-dressed in that velveteen shooting-jacket I have spoken of, which he used to boast of as having cost only twelve and sixpence; with a hole in the rim of his hat, through which, when required, he could thrust his eye-glass. He had manufactured one for himself, of a plain round piece of glass, surrounded by whalebone, the two ends of which were bound together into a long stem with a piece of twine: this long stem fitted into the hole in his hat-brim, so as to come just in front of his

right eye, in order to save the trouble, when out shooting, of raising his glass each time he fired. Dumpling was a character in himself. He was a spiteful old pony to every one but to his master, of whom he appeared to stand in awe.

I am not going to keep to times and seasons in speaking of my remembrance of Langham. My knowledge of it and of its owner extended over a space of many years; and things in connection with them crowd over my memory in thinking of that time, which may appear somewhat disconnected to my reader.

To return to Dumpling. On one occasion, he tried to assert his independence even over his master; and when on the high-road to Cockthorpe and close to a pond, he adroitly kicked Captain Marryat over his head and right into the water. After this feat, however, he was so alarmed at what he had done to the author of Peter Simple, that he stood still trembling, and allowed his master to remount, himself returning home very humble and dejected, and never attempting to be refractory with him again. But with others, Dumpling never omitted an opportunity of showing his spiteful temper. Marryat once put two of his children upon the pony, when he himself was occupied about some farming operations, and sent them across the meadow. So long as he was in sight, Dumpling trotted steadily along; but no sooner did he find himself unobserved, than up flew his heels, and both the little girls went over his head. Back they came running to their father to complain of "Dumpy." "Come here, sir!" shouted Marryat to the conscience-stricken pony. Dumpling saw a whip in his master's hand; he glanced first one side and then the other, while Marryat waited for him to come. He might have turned tail and raced all over the meadow: but after a moment's reflection, he hung his head penitently, and running to his master, thrust his nose under Marryat's arm. The moral of it was, of course, that Dumpling did not get a whipping.

When first I had looked round the walls of Langham cottage, and had seen what capital pictures were there, what first-rate bronzes and marbles, and what a splendid library, I thought I began to understand how he could make himself happy in this seclusion. "He lives amongst his books, and his writings and papers," thought I. "I can see that a man of literary tastes and pursuits may make a world of his own." But he did not make a world in his literary pursuits. He was, at the time of which I am now writing, engaged upon some book: one of his later children's stories, I think; but his literary work was never obtruded on his family. There was no time of the day apparently when he was to be left undisturbed. The other members of the household went in and out of the room where he sat, and never found him abstracted or disinclined to take an interest in the outer world. He threw himself like a child into his children's pleasures: one morning helping to make a kite, the next listening to doggerel verses, or in the evening joining with them in acting charades. He would leave off in the middle of writing his book to

carry out a handful of salt to his favourite calves upon the lawn; and enter into the fanciful papering of a boudoir with all the enthusiasm of a girl. It always struck me that Marryat was like an elder brother rather than a father to his own children, although I am fully sure he lost nothing in their filial respect and honour by the intimacy and freedom of their love; and I know now, after he has been dead eighteen years, that the hearts of his children cling to his memory as fondly as they did to himself in the days I speak of. It must be something to be capable of inspiring love which will outlast time and absence without diminution.

The children came to him in all their difficulties and scrapes. I remember a little creature of nine or ten, with a very blank face, showing a great rent in the front of her frock with "Oh, my father, what am I to do? Miss (the "governess") "will be so angry; she will give me such lesson to learn," and Marryat's taking hold of the frock and tearing the hole six times as large as at first, and laughingly answering, "There, say I did it."

All his children invariably addressed him as "My father." It was a fancy of his own. He had a special dislike to the popular name " Papa," which he said meant just nothing.

He was so very fond of the society of young people. Without in any degree accommodating himself to them, his feelings seemed more in unison with the young than with those of his own age. On one occasion, while I was staying with them, they were all invited to an evening-party, to be preceded by a dinner to which he alone was asked. He came into the room with an aggrieved look, and the tone of an injured man. "Here," said he, "I don't want to go to dinner; they only ask me, I know, to amuse their guests, and I am not going to talk clever' at the dinnertable: I shall go in the evening with you." He went and played games -his inventive genius always came out very happily at forfeits-and danced the polka with the children.

although he used to say And he had a very keen of his own, whom in He used to laugh till

I never knew him at home "talk clever," funnier things sometimes than any man I know. appreciation of wit in others, especially from one his parental pride he very much over-estimated. the tears were in his eyes. I never hardly knew a man laugh with greater abandonment. It would begin with a chuckle, and continue until his face was so twisted and convulsed that he would have to put his hands before it.

At dinner one day, there appeared at second course a small dish of something which looked like pastry, but scarcely deserved the name of tarts. They were not above an inch square, pinched up at the corners, and each containing a single cherry.

I saw the girls look suspiciously at these delicacies, while their father was evidently waiting for them to be noticed. Presently he said, "There's one apiece for you." Then, turning to me, he added, "I came through the kitchen as the pastry was being made. I made those."

Then one of his children asked, "I say, my father, did you wash your hands first?"

"Lor' bless you, my dear," said he, looking at his fingers, "I declare I forgot all about it."

"Then you shall cat them all yourself," she answered, jumping up, and catching him round the throat. "You have never washed your hands since you pulled about those dead rats this morning; you know you haven't."

Marryat looked convicted and guilty. He had not a word to say for himself, excepting to entreat to be let off from eating the tarts; and when he had ceased laughing, he said,—"That reminds me of my poor little boy Willie, who died. I had him on board with me in the Larne. Once he got the ship's cook to give him some flour and plums to make a pudding; and after making it in the galley, and having it boiled, I saw him bring it on deck. Here, Jack!' called he to one of the ship's boys. You may have this.' I was surprised at his giving away his pudding which he had thought so much of; and I asked him why he did not eat it himself. No, thank you, father,' said he; 'I made it.' He had been short of water, I afterwards found out," added Marryat, "and had mixed the pudding by repeatedly spitting into it."

"Which son was that?" I asked.

"He was our second boy; he died under seven years old. He is the original Willie' of the King's Own. All the anecdotes of that child's

life on board ship are true."

I think Marryat was most judicious in his treatment of the young; never admitting incapacity as an excuse for want of endeavour. If any one with him pleaded—“ It is of no use my attempting; I am not clever enough!" he was met with the answer,-"You not clever enough? Don't tell me such nonsense; you are no fool, you can do it if you choose, and I expect you to do it." And in most cases the expected things were done.

I used to be amused at the original modes he had of punishing his children when they were naughty. On one occasion two culprits of eight and ten were brought to him with a complaint from their maid that they had persisted in playing upon their father's violin when the dressmaker was vainly striving to try on some new frocks. Marryat lifted the two children, one on each side of the top of his bureau; and there he kept them sitting for a time like two little images, until he took them down to undergo extra petting for the rest of the day; for, if a child required to be punished, as soon as the punishment was over, it seemed as if no amount of indulgence was thought too much for compensation; like the jam to take the taste of the physic out of its mouth.

Another time the same two children came to him as the dentist of the family, and the elder, leading the little one by the hand, exclaimed with great glee,

He looked into the child's mouth, and twisted out the loose little peg; then turning to the elder child, he quickly pulled out one of hers also, saying

"There; about it."

I shall take out one of yours too; that's for coming to tell

Whatever the size of the culprit, it was always during the time of disgrace addressed with great formality. "Good morning, Miss Marryat," or "Good evening, Miss Marryat," when Miss Marryat might happen to be six years of age. He was generally said to spoil his children, but I hold my own views on what constitutes spoiling.

I often wondered where and when Marryat had found the time to cultivate his own mind, for he had had but few advantages of actual education. I suppose it was from the great power and habit of observation which he possessed that he learnt intuitively. There was hardly a scientific subject upon which he was not well informed, besides being, as all the world knows, a practically scientific man. I have heard him regret that he was not born a century later than his time; as he considered the world in a scientific point of view as comparatively in its infancy. He used to prophecy of the great discoveries yet to be made in steam and in electricity. He took a great interest in magnetism and in phrenology, in both of which he was, I am sure, a firm believer. He had been told by Townsend that he was himself a powerful mesmerist; but I do not think he ever tested his power.

There was hardly a modern language of which he had not some knowledge; grammatical knowledge, I mean. So far as speaking them went, although he would rattle off unhesitatingly French or German, or Italian, or whatever was called for at the moment, his thoroughly British tongue imbued them all with so much of the same accent, that it was difficult to know what the language was meant for indeed, he used to tell a story of how an Italian, after listening to one of his long speeches in his purest Tuscan, apologized to him and said he did not understand English.

Marryat ran away to sea at twelve years of age, so that at best his education must have been very limited. I remember this story which he himself told me of his early school-days:-

"The first school I ever went to was one kept by an old dame. There was a number of other boys there who were all very good boys, but Charlie Babbage and I were always the scamps of the school. He and I were for ever in scrapes, and the old woman used to place us side by side standing on stools in the middle of the school-room and point to us as a warning to the others and say, 'Look at those two boys! They are bad boys and they will never get on in the world. Those two boys will come to a bad end.' It is rather funny," he concluded, "but Babbage and I are the only two in all the school who have ever been heard of since. We got round the old dame though in the end. The boys used to curry favour with her by being the first to bring in the daily eggs laid by