any notable types of rector in the nineteenth century, Keble,
Hawker, Hook, Robertson, Dolling, and scores of others; but none touched
life at more points, none became so truly national a figure as Charles
Kingsley in his Eversley home.

His father was of an old squire family; like his son he was a clergyman,
a naturalist, and a sportsman. His mother, a Miss Lucas, came from
Barbados; and while she wrote poetry with feeling and skill, she had
also a practical gift of management. His father's calling involved
several changes of residence. Those which had most influence on his son
were his removal in 1824 to Barnack, on the edge of the fens, still
untamed and full of wild life, and in 1830 to Clovelly in North Devon.
More than thirty years later, when asked to fill up the usual questions
in a lady's album, he wrote that his favourite scenery was 'wide flats
and open sea'. He was precocious as a child and perpetrated poems and
sermons at the age of four; but very early he developed a habit of
observation and a healthy interest in things outside himself. Such a
nature could not be indifferent to the beauty of Clovelly, to the coming
and going of its fishermen, and to the romance and danger of their
lives. The steep village-street nestling among the woods, the little
harbour sheltered by the sandstone cliffs, the wide view over the blue
water, won his lifelong affection.

His parents talked of sending him to Eton or Rugby, but in the end they
decided to put him with Derwent Coleridge, the poet's son, at the
Grammar School of Helston. Here he had the scenery which he loved, and
masters who developed his strong bent towards natural science; and here
he laid the foundations of his knowledge of botany, which remained all
his life his favourite recreation. He was an eager reader, but not a
close student of books; fond of outdoor life, but not skilled in
athletic games; capable of much effort and much endurance, but rather
irregular in his spurts of energy. A more methodical training might have
saved him some mistakes, but it might also have taken the edge off that
fresh enthusiasm which made intercourse with him at all times seem like
a breath of moorland air. Here he developed an independence of mind and
a fearlessness of opinion which is rarely to be found in the atmosphere
of a big public school.

At the age of seventeen, when his father was appointed to St. Luke's,
Chelsea, he left Helston and spent two years attending lect