d to
put these passages before you, for on the principle that actions speak
louder than words, I find that in describing a man's character it is
better to give examples of his ways than to speak in broad and general
terms. Had I said that he was fierce in ins religion and subject to
strange fits of piety, the words might have made little impression
upon you; but when I tell you of his attack upon the officers in the
tanning-yard, and his summoning us down in the dead of the night to
await the second coming, you can judge for yourselves the lengths to
which his belief would carry him. For the rest, he was an excellent man
of business, fair and even generous in his dealings, respected by all
and loved by few, for his nature was too self-contained to admit of much
affection. To us he was a stern and rigid father, punishing us heavily
for whatever he regarded as amiss in our conduct. He bad a store of such
proverbs as 'Give a child its will and a whelp its fill, and neither
will strive,' or 'Children are certain cares and uncertain comforts,'
wherewith he would temper my mother's more kindly impulses. He could not
bear that we should play trick-track upon the green, or dance with the
other children upon the Saturday night.

As to my mother, dear soul, it was her calm, peaceful influence which
kept my father within bounds, and softened his austere rule. Seldom
indeed, even in his darkest moods, did the touch of her gentle hand and
the sound of her voice fail to soothe his fiery spirit. She came of a
Church stock, and held to her religion with a quiet grip which was proof
against every attempt to turn her from it. I imagine that at one time
her husband had argued much with her upon Arminianism and the sin of
simony, but finding his exhortations useless, he had abandoned the
subject save on very rare occasions. In spite of her Episcopacy,
however, she remained a staunch Whig, and never allowed her loyalty to
the throne to cloud her judgment as to the doings of the monarch who sat
upon it.

Women were good housekeepers fitly years ago, but she was conspicuous
among the best. To see her spotless cuffs and snowy kirtle one would
scarce credit how hard she laboured. It was only the well ordered house
and the dustless rooms which proclaimed her constant industry. She
made salves and eyewaters, powders and confects, cordials and persico,
orangeflower water and cherry brandy, each in its due season, and all of
the best. She was wis