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 ��exercise in so short a time, I thought you would find it difficult to make them all as soon as you should.'

This Whitsuntide, I and my brother were sent to pass some time at Birmingham I ; I believe, a fortnight. Why such boys were sent to trouble other houses, I cannot tell. My mother had some opinion that much improvement was to be had by changing the mode of life. My uncle Harrison was a widower ; and his house was kept by Sally Ford, a young woman of such sweetness of temper, that I used to say she had no fault. We lived most at uncle Ford's, being much caressed by my aunt, a good-natured, coarse woman, easy of converse, but willing to find something to censure in the absent. My uncle Harrison did not much like us, nor did we like him. He was a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every night 2, but drunk with little drink, very peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but, luckily, not rich. At my aunt Ford's I eat so much of a boiled leg of mutton, that she used to talk of it. My mother, who had lived in a narrow sphere, and was then affected by little things, told me seriously that it would hardly ever be forgotten. Her mind, I think, was after wards much enlarged, or greater evils wore out the care of less.

I staid after the vacation was over some days ; and remember, when I wrote home, that I desired the horses to come on Thurs day of the first school week ; and then, and not till then, they should be welcome to go. I was much pleased with a rattle to my whip, and wrote of it to my mother.

When my father came to fetch us home, he told the ostler, that he had twelve miles home 3, and two boys under his care. This offended me. He had then a watch, which he returned when he was to pay for it 4.

In making, I think, the first exercise under Holbrook, I per ceived the power of continuity of attention, of application not suffered to wander or to pause. I was writing at the kitchen

1 In 1700 the population of Bir- not thought the worse of.' Life, v. 59. mingham was 15,032; in 1731,23,286. 3 Lichfield was sixteen miles from Gentleman's Magazine, 1743, p. 539. Birmingham.

2 * I remember (said Dr. Johnson) 4 Johnson, Hawkins believed, did when all the decent people in Lich- not have a watch till he was in his field got drunk every night and were fifty-ninth year. Ib. ii. 57, n. 4.

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