East Anglia they were more
numerous than in London. It may be that they have helped to weaken
Dissent in that part of the world. Men of independent intellect must
have been not a little shocked by that unctuous familiarity with God and
the devil which is the characteristic of that class. On a Sunday morning
Jemmy Wells, as his admirers called him, would describe in the most
graphic manner what the devil had said to him in the course of the week;
and on one memorable occasion, at any rate, described with much force the
shame he felt at having to tell the gentleman in black that his people's
memories, unfortunately, were somewhat remiss in the matter of pew-rents.
Brother Collins avoided such flights, but he was an attractive preacher
to all the country round, nevertheless. Truly such a one was needed in
that district. At Rendham, a village near Saxmundham, lived a godly
minister of the Church of England. In 1844, speaking to a friend of the
writer, he said that when he came into the county, between thirty and
forty years before, there was only one other clergyman and himself
between Ipswich and Great Yarmouth who preached the Gospel, and that
sometimes the squire of the parish would hold up his watch to him to bid
him close his sermon. In some places where he went to preach he had to
have a body-guard to prevent his being mobbed and pelted with rotten eggs
on account of his evangelical principles.

CHAPTER X.
MILTON'S SUFFOLK SCHOOLMASTER.

Stowmarket--The Rev. Thomas Young--Bishop Hall and the Smectymnian
divines--Milton's mulberry-tree--Suffolk relationships.

'My father destined me,' writes John Milton, in his 'Defensio Secunda,'
'while yet a little boy, for the study of humane letters, which I served
with such eagerness that, from the twelfth year of my age, I scarcely
ever went from my lessons to bed before midnight, which, indeed, was the
first cause of injury to my eyes, to whose natural weakness there were
also added frequent headaches; all which not retarding my natural
impetuosity in learning, he caused me to be instructed both at the
Grammar School and under other masters at home.' Of the latter, the best
known was the Rev. Thomas Young, the Puritan minister, of Stowmarket,
Suffolk.

It is generally claimed for Young that he was an East Anglian. Professor
Masson has, however, settled the question that he was a Scotchman, of the
University of Aberdeen. Be that as it may, like most Scotchm