aticism
and his friends piety, though it must be confessed that this piety
was prone to take a fierce and fiery shape. As I look back, one or two
instances of that stand out so hard and clear in my recollection that
they might be scenes which I had seen of late in the playhouse, instead
of memories of my childhood more than threescore years ago, when the
second Charles was on the throne.

The first of these occurred when I was so young that I can remember
neither what went before nor what immediately after it. It stuck in my
infant mind when other things slipped through it. We were all in the
house one sultry summer evening, when there came a rattle of kettledrums
and a clatter of hoofs, which brought my mother and my father to the
door, she with me in her arms that I might have the better view. It was
a regiment of horse on their way from Chichester to Portsmouth, with
colours flying and band playing, making the bravest show that ever my
youthful eyes had rested upon. With what wonder and admiration did I
gaze at the sleek prancing steeds, the steel morions, the plumed hats
of the officers, the scarfs and bandoliers. Never, I thought, had such
a gallant company assembled, and I clapped my hands and cried out in my
delight. My father smiled gravely, and took me from my mother's arms.
'Nay, lad,' he said, 'thou art a soldier's son, and should have more
judgment than to commend such a rabble as this. Canst thou not, child as
thou art, see that their arms are ill-found, their stirrup-irons rusted,
and their ranks without order or cohesion? Neither have they thrown out
a troop in advance, as should even in times of peace be done, and their
rear is straggling from here to Bedhampton. Yea,' he continued, suddenly
shaking his long arm at the troopers, and calling out to them, 'ye are
corn ripe for the sickle and waiting only for the reapers!' Several of
them reined up at this sudden out-flame. 'Hit the crop-eared rascal over
the pate, Jack!' cried one to another, wheeling his horse round; but
there was that in my father's face which caused him to fall back into
the ranks again with his purpose unfulfilled. The regiment jingled on
down the road, and my mother laid her thin hands upon my father's arm,
and lulled with her pretty coaxing ways the sleeping devil which had
stirred within him.

On another occasion which I can remember, about my seventh or eighth
year, his wrath burst out with more dangerous effect. I was playing
ab