‘All that I now recollect more of this residence in Berkshire is, that
my father, after having been from home longer than usual, put a sudden,
and to me unexpected end to it—took me with him, and for some time
travelled round the country.
‘The first place I distinctly remember myself, was London, where I have
a faint notion of having been among boys with their schoolbooks. Whether
I was sent to school for a week or two, while my father and mother were
adjusting their affairs, and preparing for their new career, is more
than I can affirm or deny: though I have no recollection of acquiring
any knowledge, a thing which, before this, had begun to make a strong
impression on me. If I were really sent to school, it must have been for
a very short time, nor could I have been provided with books or other
means of improvement. And indeed my father was so straitened in his
circumstances, that my mother very soon after agreed to turn pedlar,
hung a basket with pins, needles, tape, garters, and other small
haberdashery, on her arm, and hawked them through the outskirts and
neighbourhood of London, while I trotted after her. I might at first
perhaps feel some disgust at this employment: but use soon reconciled me
to it, as the following anecdote will shew.
‘I cannot say what my father’s employment was, while I and my mother
were, what they emphatically called _tramping_ the villages, to hawk our
pedlary. It may be presumed, however, that it was not very lucrative,
for he soon after left it, and he and my mother went into the country,
hawking their small wares, and dragging me after them. They went first
to Cambridge, and afterwards, as their hopes of success led them,
traversed the neighbouring villages. Among these we came to one which I
thought most remarkably clean, well built, and unlike villages in
general: my father said it was the handsomest in the kingdom. We must
have been very poor, however, and hard-driven on this occasion; for here
it was that I was either encouraged, or commanded, one day to go by
myself, from house to house, and beg. Young as I was, I had considerable
readiness in making out a story, and on this day, my little inventive
faculties shone forth with much brilliancy. I told one story at one
house, another at another, and continued to vary my tale just as the
suggestions arose: the consequence of which was, that I moved the good
country people exceedingly. One called me a poor fatherless child:
another exclaimed, what a pity! I had so much sense! a third patted my
head, and prayed God to preserve me, that I might make a good man. And
most of them contributed either by scraps of meat, farthings, bread and
cheese, or other homely offers, to enrich me, and send me away with my
pockets loaded. I joyfully brought as much of my stores as I could
carry, to the place of rendezvous my parents had appointed, where I
astonished them by again reciting the false tales I had so readily
invented. My father, whose passions were easily moved, felt no little
conflict of mind as I proceeded. I can now, in imagination, see the
working of his features. “God bless the boy! I never heard the like!”
Then turning to my mother, he exclaimed with great earnestness—“This
must not be! the poor child will become a common place liar! A
hedge-side rogue!—He will learn to pilfer!—Turn a confirmed vagrant!—Go
on the high way when he is older, and get hanged. He shall never go on
such errands again.” How fortunate for me in this respect, that I had
such a father! He was driven by extreme poverty, restless anxiety, and a
brain too prone to sanguine expectation, into many absurdities, which
were but the harbingers of fresh misfortunes: but he had as much
integrity and honesty of heart as perhaps any man in the kingdom, who
had had no greater advantages. It pleases me now to recollect, that,
though I had a consciousness that my talents could keep my parents from
want, I had a still stronger sense of the justice of my father’s
remarks. As it happened, I had not only read and remembered the
consequences of good and evil, as they are pointed out in the
Scriptures, but I had also become acquainted with some of the renowned
heroes of fable; and to be a liar, a rogue, and get hanged, did not
square well with the confused ideas I had either of goodness or
greatness, or with my notions of a hero.
‘From the vicinity of Cambridge, we passed on to the Isle of Ely,
hawking our different wares, pins, laces, tempting ribbons, and garters,
in every village we came to; arriving first at Peterborough, and
afterwards taking care to be present at Wisbeach fair. Markets, fairs,
and wakes, were indeed the great objects which regulated all our
motions.
‘The Isle of Ely, from its marshy nature, is much infested by the
reptile tribes. One day, as we were pushing forward through the grass by
the road side, I saw what I imagined to be a beautiful ribbon, striped
and spotted with various colours, but chiefly blue and white; and with
great surprise catching hold of my mother’s arm, I cried, “Look, mammy,
look!” No less admiring what she saw than myself, and equally
mistaken,—“Bless me,” said she, “how pretty!” Then stooping to take it
up, she touched it; but our surprise now greatly increased, when a large
snake uncoiled itself, darted forward, and in a moment was out of sight.
My father was much amused at the terror we felt. He had lived for some
time with a farmer, and knew the difference between the adder and common
snake tribes, with the harmless nature of the latter. For in summer and
autumn, whenever he could come upon a sleeping snake, he made it his
diversion to catch it by the tail, shake it when it attempted to rise,
and bring it with him wherever he was going. A country woman, with whom
we met shortly after, told us that the breed of snakes was so common in
those parts, that they could not be kept out of their cottages, where
they frequently took shelter, especially in the night.
‘The things of which I have the most distinct recollection as connected
with the Isle of Ely, are its marshy lands, multiplied ditches, long
broad grass, low and numerous draining mills; with the cathedral of
Peterborough, which I thought beautiful: but above all, those then dear
and delightful creatures, a quack doctor, peeping from behind his
curtain, and that droll devil his merry Andrew, apparitions first beheld
by me at Wisbeach fair. It was a pleasure so unexpected, so exquisite,
so rich and rare, that I followed the merry Andrew and his drummer
through the streets, gliding under arms and between legs, never long
together three yards apart from him; almost bursting with laughter at
his extreme comicality; tracing the gridirons, punchinellos, and
pantomime figures on his jacket; wondering at the manner in which he
twirled his hat in the air, and again caught it so dexterously on his
head. My curiosity did not abate, when he examined to see if there was
not some little devil hid within it, with a grotesque squint of his
eyes, twist of his nose, and the exclamation, “Oh, ho! have I caught
you, Mr Imp?”—making a snatch at the inside of his hat, grasping at
something, opening his hand, finding nothing in it, and then crying with
a stupid stare—“No, you see, good folks, the devil of any devil is
here!” Then again, when he returned to the stage, followed by an eager
crowd, and in an imperious tone was ordered by his master to mount,—to
see the comical jump he gave, alighting half upright, roaring with
pretended pain, pressing his hip, declaring he had put out his collar
bone, crying to his master to come and cure it, receiving a kick,
springing up and making a somerset; thanking his master kindly for
making him well; yet, the moment his back was turned, mocking him with
wry faces; answering the doctor, whom I should have thought extremely
witty, if Andrew had not been there, with jokes so apposite and
whimsical as never failed to produce roars of laughter. All this was to
me assuredly, “the feast of reason and the flow of soul!” As it was the
first scene of the kind I had ever witnessed, so it was the most
extatic. I think it by no means improbable, that an ardent love of the
dramatic art took root in my mind from the accidents of that day.