Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/155

 Mundella, senior, was a Lombard refugee, a native of Como, who, taking part in the insurrectionary movement against the Austrians in 1820, was driven into exile. He landed in England almost penniless, and settled eventually in Leicester, where he endeavored to earn a livelihood as a teacher of languages. Instruction in modern tongues was then a luxury in which but few indulged, and the luckless Antonio, in consequence, frequently broke the exile's bitter bread,—endured what his immortal countryman Dante has called "the hell of exile." Educated for the Roman Church, he had no regular profession on which to rely. His income was consequently at all times precarious. He married, however, a remarkable woman,—Rebecca Allsop of Leicester, a lady richly endowed mentally, and possessed of some little property. She was an adept in lace-embroidery, then a remunerative art, and her skill and unremitting industry in the main supported the Mundella household for the first ten years of her married life.

Then there came a crisis. Her eyesight almost completely failed; and Anthony had in consequence to be removed from school in his ninth year, in order to put his childish shoulder to the wheel. So far his education had been carefully superintended. Mrs. Mundella had a wide knowledge of English literature, was a diligent Shakespearian scholar, and little Anthony had been as quick to learn as she had been apt to teach.

His acquirements accordingly secured him employment in a printing-office, where he remained till his eleventh year. Thereupon he was apprenticed to the hosiery trade. He was most fortunate in his employer, a discriminating man, whose son, a member of Parlia-