thing that was too weak to resist them; in short, Neroes and Domitians in miniature. And those who were not born with these happy characteristics, hastened to get inoculated with them; as nothing was held more contemptible, because evincing a babyish, cowardly spirit, than a peaceable temper, and tenderness to cats and dogs. My little friend Tommy was of a mixed class, having been born with spirit enough to adventure into every excess, and yet with milder and kindlier feelings, that, if carefully governed, might have made him the best of boys; and he was of just such a character as to be able, at any moment, to enter with enthusiasm upon the torture of a tabby cat, and burst into tears, the next, at the sight of her dying agonies.

The little fellow's best feelings had been enlisted by the service I rendered him by plucking him from the water; and his father had made him aware—if, indeed, his own conscience had not-of, the meanness and cruelty he had been guilty of in attacking such a poor, inoffensive vagabond as I; and the end was, that Master Tommy was anxious to repair the mischief he had done, and do me some important service in return. He straightway contracted a fiery friendship for me, which he showed in a thousand different ways; and especially by cramming me with oranges and sugar-plums, and other infantile luxuries, such as had never before blessed my lips; and, what was better still, by appointing me his chief playmate.

It was Anaxagoras, I think, the philosopher of Lampsacus, who, being asked at his death-hour, by the magistrates of the city, what he wished to be done in commemoration of him, desired they would give the boys a holiday on the anniversary of his death, and let them play over his grave. This sen

timent is generally considered as proving that Anaxagoras must have been an uncommonly amiable old gentleman, who had spared the birch in his school, and was determined the boys of Lampsacus should be as happy after his death as before. To my mind, it proves a good deal more, and shows that the philosopher was a philosopher in earnest, who knew the influence of childish play-because an institution of Nature herself-in expanding the powers of the childish mind; and therefore aimed, in his festival, as much at the improvement as the happiness of his youthful heirs. Of the justice and truth of this remark I am the more strongly persuaded, as I believe I can trace the first efforts of expansion in my own spirit to the influence of boyish sports; and I am convinced that I learned more by playing leap-frog and cock-horse with Master Tommy Howard than by thumbing all the hornbooks and primers his father ever put into my hands.

It must be recollected that the sports of childhood-those first and truest sources of enjoyment, of health and of happiness-were vanities I had never known, nor even dreamed of; all my tender years having been passed in captivity and servitude, and every hour and moment devoted to some infernal drudgery, as killing to the mind as the body. The smile and laugh of happy vacancy, the shout of merriment, the whistle, the song, the uproar of play, were music that had never visited my ears; which were, indeed seldom invaded by any thing, except abusive language and the hard palms of my honest skipper. I was now, for the first time, to be made acquainted with such joys; and the delight I experienced from them was only equalled by their happy effects on my benighted spirit. The change was speedily manifested in my visage and person, the former of

which gradually lost the look of stupefaction that had hitherto marked it; while the latter took a sudden start, and grew out of the similitude of a starved ape, which it had first borne: though, I must confess, as far as stature is concerned, I have not even yet entirely got over the effects of my early sufferings. A still better evidence of the transformation that had been effected, was soon shown; for little Tommy now taking upon himself the office of a schoolmaster, ambitious to succeed in an exploit which his father had pronounced impracticable, I was actually, through his instrumentalily, taught to read; and that before the good doctor dreamed that the attempt had been made to teach me; and, indeed, the first intimation he had of the miracle was when Tommy carried me in triumph before him, to display the fruits of his skill and enterprise.

The work of regeneration thus commenced by the son, the parent was determined it should not languish for want of encouragement on his part; and the result was that, in a short time, I was translated from the kitchen to his study, and from thence to a public school, where it was my good fortune to make such progress as entirely satisfied my patron; who from that moment treated me rather as a child than a poor dependant on his charity. And there unhappily occurred, soon after, an event which, while it brought mourning into his family, advanced me to a still higher niche in his affections. This was nothing less than the death of poor Tommy, who, to the eternal grief of his parents, and myself -for I loved him with all my heart-having now learned to swim a little, was drowned, while bathing with other boys in the river. How the catastrophe happened was not known, as none of his companions were by him at the moment; and, indeed, he

was not missed by them, until they had finished their sports and gone on shore to dress; when the sight of his clothes reminded them of his disappearance; nor was his body ever recovered. He was, as I have mentioned, an only son-I might almost have said, an only child; for, though Dr. Howard had another, a daughter, who was a year older than Tommy, yet she was, and, from her youth up, had been, of so frail a constitution, that nothing but her father's skill and extreme care seemed to keep her alive, and few believed her term of existence could extend to many years. The death of Tommy was, therefore, almost as heavy a blow as if he had been, in reality, an only cnild; and it plunged his father into a kind of despair that lasted several months; after which he gradually recovered his spirits, and began to treat me with uncommon marks of regard, transferring to me in a great degree the affection which had once been lavished on his son. In this he was imitated by his wife, an excellent woman, who had always distinguished me by her favour, and now carried her benevolence to such a pitch that, as I have been told, she once even proposed they should adopt me as their child, and give me their name; and, although the good doctor did not altogether consent to carry the matter so far, I was treated by them both as if the act of affiliation had really occurred, and also by the world at large-that is to say, the people of our town, who all considered that my fortune was now certainly made. My name was so far changed as to make it read Robin Day, instead of Robin Rusty; the Day, I presume, having been borrowed from my skipper.

CHAPTER IV.

Three years at school, under the ancient system of education; with an account of Robin's rival, the heroic Dicky Dare, and the war of the Feds and Demies.

- In the meanwhile, I accommodated myself to the change with surprising readiness; and, as I grew older, I assumed the deportment, and gradually took upon me all the airs of a rich man's son, bearing my honours, and the favours of my protectors, with as much grace as if I had been born to them; and this presumption, as it was indicative of a gentlemanly spirit, and had the good fortune to be backed by a gentlemanly little body-for I was grown, as every body said, quite a pretty little fellow-served the purpose of endearing me still further to my pseudoparents; who suffered me to fume and pout, to swell and strut, to play the impertinent and tyrant, and indulge all the other humours of a spoiled child, yielding to them with as much dutiful submissiveness as if they had been my parents in reality. And, certainly, so long as my good patroness lived— which, unhappily, was not long, for she died suddenly, of an affection of the heart, in but little more than a year after her son-even Tommy himself had not been more effectually humoured to the top of his bent.

But however bravely I bore it in my patron's