CHAPTER III. BOYHOOD.
Taken to an Exhibition of Mechanism — Silver Ladies — School near London — Unjustly punished — Injurious Effect — Ward’s Young Mathematician’s Guide — Got up in the Night to Study — Frederick Marryat interrupts — Treaty of Peace — Found out — Strange Effect of Treacle and Cognac on Boys — Taught to write Sermons under the Rev. Charles Simeon.
DURING my boyhood my mother took me to several exhibitions of machinery. I well remember one of them in Hanover Square, by a man who called himself Merlin. I was so greatly interested in it, that the Exhibitor remarked the circumstance, and after explaining some of the objects to which the public had access, proposed to my mother to take me up to his workshop, where I should see still more wonderful automata. We accordingly ascended to the attic. There were two uncovered female figures of silver, about twelve inches high.
One of these walked or rather glided along a space of about four feet, when she turned round and went back to her original place. She used an eye-glass occasionally, and bowed frequently, as if recognizing her acquaintances. The motions of her limbs were singularly graceful.
The other silver figure was an admirable danseuse, with a bird on the fore finger of her right hand, which wagged its tail, flapped its wings, and opened its beak. This lady attitudinized in a most fascinating manner. Her eyes were full of imagination, and irresistible. {18}
These silver figures were the chef-d’œuvres of the artist: they had cost him years of unwearied labour, and were not even then finished.
After I left Devonshire I was placed at a school in the neighbourhood of London, in which there were about thirty boys.
〈UNJUST PUNISHMENT.〉
My first experience was unfortunate, and probably gave an unfavourable turn to my whole career during my residence of three years.
After I had been at school a few weeks, I went with one of my companions into the play-ground in the dusk of the evening. We heard a noise, as of people talking in an orchard at some distance, which belonged to our master. As the orchard had recently been robbed, we thought that thieves were again at work. We accordingly climbed over the boundary wall, ran across the field, and saw in the orchard beyond a couple of fellows evidently running away. We pursued as fast as our legs could carry us, and just got up to the supposed thieves at the ditch on the opposite side of the orchard.