n
as trees walking. Railways have rendered the journey to London
perilously easy. Hodge, in the vain hope to better himself, has left his
village home, its clear skies, its bracing air, its healthy toil, its
simple hours, and gone to live in the crowded slums. It may be that he
earns better wages, but you may buy gold too dear. A healthy rustic is
far happier in his village. It is there he should strive to live, rather
than in the town; and a time may come when English legislators will have
wisdom enough to do something to plant the people on the land, rather
than compel them to come to town, to be poisoned by its bad air, its
dangerous companionship, and its evil ways.

As regards intelligence, we were in a poor way. On Saturdays _The
Suffolk Chronicle_ appeared, much to the delight of the Radicals, while
the Tories were cheered by _The Ipswich Journal_. At a later time _The
Patriot_ came to our house, and we got an idea of what was going on in
the religious and Dissenting world. Foster's Essays were to be seen on
many shelves, and later on the literary and religious speculations of
Isaac Taylor, of Ongar, and Dick's writings had also a wonderful sale. I
fancy no one cares much now for any of the writers I have named. Such is
fame!

As a boy it seemed to me I had too much of the Assembly's Catechism and
Virgil, to whose poetic beauties I was somewhat blind. I resolved to run
away, as I fancied there was something better and brighter than village
life. Religion was not attractive to me. Sunday was irksome. The land
was barren, from Dan to Beersheba. I longed for the conflict and
excitement and life of the distant town, and I ran away unconscious of
the pain I should inflict on parents I dearly loved. Oh, that running
away! If I live--and there is little chance of that--to the age of
Methuselah I shall never forget it! It took place in the early morn of a
long summer's day. The whole scene rises distinctly before me. I see
myself giving a note to my sister for father and mother when they came
down to breakfast, I see myself casting an eye to the bedroom window to
see if there was any chance of their being up and so stopping the
enterprise on which I had set my mind. Happily, as I thought, the blinds
were down and there was nothing to forbid my opening the garden gate and
finding myself on the London road. I was anxious to be off and yet loth
to leave. I had a small parcel under my arm, consisting