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assisted his neighbours in hay making and shearing their flocks, and in the performance of this latter service he was eminently dexterous. They, in their turn, complimented him with the present of a haycock, or a fleece; less as a recompense for this particular service than as a general acknowledgment. The Sabbath was in a strict sense kept holy; the Sunday evenings being devoted to reading the scripture and family prayer. The principal festivals appointed by the Church were also duly observed; but through every other day in the week, through every week in the year, he was incessantly occupied in works of hand or mind; not allowing a moment for recreation, except upon a Saturday afternoon, when he indulged himself with a newspaper, or sometimes with a magazine. The frugality and temperance established in his house were as admirable as the industry. Nothing to which the name of luxury could be given was there known; in the latter part of his life, indeed, when tea had been brought into almost general use, it was provided for visiters, and for such of his own family as returned occasionally to his roof, and had been accustomed to this refreshment elsewhere; but neither he nor his wife ever partook of it. The raiment worn by his family was comely and decent, but as simple as their diet; the homespun materials were made up into apparel by their own hands. At the time of the decease of this thrifty pair, their cottage contained a large store of webs of woollen and linen cloth, woven from thread of their own spinning. And it is remarkable that the pew in the chapel in which the family used to sit, remained a few years ago neatly lined with woollen cloth, spun by the pastor's own hands. It is the only pew in the chapel so distinguished; and I know of no other instance of his conformity to the delicate accommodations of modern

neighbours, consisted of peat, procured from the mosses by their own labour. The lights by which, in the winter evenings, their work was performed, were of their own manufacture, such as still continue to be used in these cottages; they are made of the pith of rushes dipped in fat. White candles, as tallow candles are here called, were reserved to honour the Christmas festivals, and were perhaps produced upon no other occasions. Once a month, during the proper season, a sheep was drawn from their small mountain flock, and killed for the use of the family; and a cow, towards the close of the year, was salted and dried, for winter provision; the hide was tanned to furnish them with shoes. By these various resources this venerable clergyman reared a numerous family; not only preserving them, as he affectingly says, from wanting the necessaries of life,' but affording them an unstinted education, and the means of raising themselves in society.

All this, if not a lesson in the pursuit of knowledge, is at least a striking example of what assiduity and perseverance will do in any pursuit, as well as highly instructive with regard to one of the most important subjects that can engage the attention of literary or scientific students, the art, namely, of husbanding time and employing it to the best advantage. But with all his industry of another description, Mr Walker did not find it impossible to nourish and exercise also his mental powers. 'It might have been concluded,' his biographer proceeds, that no one could thus, as it were, have converted his body into a machine of industry for the humblest uses, and kept his thoughts so frequently bent upon secular concerns, without grievous injury to the more precious parts of his nature. How could the powers of intellect thrive, or its graces be displayed, in the midst of circumstances apparently so unfavourable, and when, to the

direct cultivation of the mind, so small a portion of time was allotted? But, in this extraordinary man, things in their nature adverse were reconciled; his conversation was remarkable, not only for being chaste and pure, but for the degree in which it was fervent and eloquent; his written style was correct, simple, and animated. Nor did his affections suffer more than his intellect; he was tenderly alive to all the duties of his pastoral office; the poor and needy 'he never sent empty away;' the stranger was fed and refreshed in passing that unfrequented vale; the sick were visited; and the feelings of humanity found further exercise among the distresses and embarrassments in the worldly estate of his neighbours, with which his talents for business made him acquainted; and the disinteredness, impartiality, and uprightness which he maintained in the management of all affairs confided to him, were virtues seldom separated in his own conscience from religious obligations. Nor could such conduct fail to remind those who witnessed it, of a spirit nobler than law or custom; they felt convictions which, but for such intercourse, could not have been afforded, that, as in the practice of their pastor, there was no guile, so in his faith there was nothing hollow; and we are warranted in believing that, upon these occasions, selfishness, obstinacy, and discord would often give way before the breathings of his good will and saintly integrity. It may be presumed also, while his humble congregation were listening to the moral precepts which he delivered from the pulpit, and to the Christian exhortations, that they should love their neighbour as themselves, and do as they would be done unto, that peculiar efficacy was given to the preacher's labours, by recollections in the minds of his congregation, that they were called upon to do no more than his own actions were daily setting before their eyes.'

What may be deemed out of character, we may merely add, in some of the occupations in which this excellent clergyman was wont to employ himself, ought to be judged of with a reference both to the times in which he was born and grew up, and to the simple and sequestered population among whom it was his lot to pass his life. Had he lived,' says Mr Wordsworth, justly, at a later period, the principle of duty would have produced application as unremitting; the same energy of character would have been displayed, though in many instances with widely different effects.'

CHAPTER XVI.

Pursuit of Knowledge by Travellers.- Lithgow; Walking Stewart; Athenian Stuart; Niebuhr; Ledyard; Belzoni. - Conclusion.

Books, immense as their value really is, are overrated when it is supposed that they may be made to teach us everything. Many of the items which constitute the mass of human knowledge have not yet found their way into books, but remain still loose and ungathered among the habits and daily transactions of society, or of some particular portion of it, from intercourse with which they are much more easily and perfectly learned than they could be from books, were they actually to be there recorded. But much of what meets us in our direct intercourse with the world, and supplies us with the richest sources of reflection and speculation, does not admit of being transferred to books at all. Indeed what should any one of us know of that country, or portion of society, with which we happen to be most familiar, if all our knowledge of it consisted merely either of what has been, or of what could be, set down about it in books? What mere description, even the most minute and faithful, ever placed before any man an exact representation even of a scene in the world of inanimate nature? The copy, it is true, simply by virtue of its being a copy, may have charms which the reality wants; but that is not the question. The one is something entirely different from the other, and produces a different impression upon the mind. Much more must this be the case when the subject of the description is something that, from the more

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