fighting."

She commenced operations by seeking to establish a school at Cheddar.
Some of the obstacles she encountered may be best related in her own
words. "I was told we should meet with great opposition, if I did not
try to propitiate the chief despot of the village, who is very rich
and very brutal; so I ventured to the den of this monster, in a
country as savage as himself. He begged I would not think of bringing
any religion into the country; it made the poor lazy and useless. In
vain I represented to him that they would be more industrious, as they
were better principled; and that I had no selfish views in what I was
doing. He gave me to understand that he knew the world too well to
believe either the one or the other. I was almost discouraged from
more visits; but I found that friends must be secured at all events;
for, if these rich savages set their faces against us, I saw that
nothing but hostilities would ensue: so I made eleven more of these
agreeable visits; and, as I improved in the art of canvassing, had
better success. Miss W. would have been shocked, had she seen the
petty tyrants whose insolence I stroked and tamed, the ugly children I
praised, the pointers and spaniels I caressed, the cider I commended,
and the wine I swallowed. After these irresistible flatteries, I
inquired of each if he could recommend me to a house, and said that I
had a little plan which I hoped would secure their orchards from being
robbed, their rabbits from being shot, their game from being stolen,
and which might lower the poor rates. If effect be the best proof of
eloquence, then mine was good speech, for I gained in time the hearty
concurrence of the whole people, and their promise to discourage or
favor the poor as they were attentive or negligent in sending their
children. Perhaps the hearts of some of these rich brutes may be
touched; they are as ignorant as the beasts that perish, intoxicated
every day before dinner, and plunged in such vices as make me begin to
think London a virtuous place." The vicarage house, which had not been
occupied for a hundred years, was hired for a school-house; "the
vicar," she says, "who lives a long way off, is repairing the house
for me; and, as he is but ninety-four years old, he insists on my
taking a lease, and is as rigorous about the rent as if I were taking
it for an assembly-room."

The prejudices of the poor were more difficult to be overcome than
those of the rich. Some tho