It was a memorable sight to see the Gunning twins wandering down The Lane hand in hand when their maternal relative had gone out washing for the day and taken the door-key with her. "Thim lads is big enough to take care of thimsilves," she would remark, though "the lads" were not yet capable of coherent speech. No doubt they wandered into some neighbor's at meal-time and received a willingly-given potato or a drink of milk. They seemed happy enough, and their funny, ugly little faces were defaced by no tears. They grew in time old enough to explain their position to inquiring passers-by and to pick up and eat an amazing quantity of green apples. A lady passing one day stopped and remonstrated with one of them. "Barney," she said, "it will make you ill if you eat those green apples."—"I do be always atin' of them, ma'am," replied Barney, stolidly.
Perhaps it may have been the green apples, but from whatever cause Barney fell ill, and all that the doctor prescribed made him no better. "It's no matther, stir," said Mrs. Gunning one morning: "yer needn't come ag'in. I'll just go an' ask Mrs. ———" (my mother).
The next morning the doctor, meeting my mother, laughingly remarked that it was very plain that they couldn't practise in the same district: he had just met Mrs. Gunning, who informed him that "what Mrs. ——— gave her the night befoor done the choild a power of good."
The day preceding our departure from the place my sister and I passed through The Lane, and received the most amiable farewells, accompanied with blessings, and even tears. The figure I best remember is that of Mrs. Regan, who, bursting out from her doorway, stood in our path, and, dissolving in tears, sobbed out, "Faith, I'm sorry yez be goin'. I don't know what I'll do at all widout yez;" and, seizing my sister's hand, gave her this unique recommendation: "Ye were always passing by mannerly—niver sassy nor impidint, nor nothing."
The Lane has changed to-day. A Chinese grocer has, I hear, set up a shop in its midst. Some of its most noted characters have passed away, and the younger generation have taken on habits more American than those of their predecessors.
M.R.O.
A CHILD'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
A quaint and charming volume, which has fallen in our way, is Little Charlie's Life, "the autobiography of a child between six and seven years of age, written with his own hand and without any assistance whatever." It was at the urgent request of the gentleman who acted as editor, Rev. W.R. Clark—thus rescuing an inimitable little work from comparative oblivion—that the parents of the youthful author reluctantly consented to the publication of this curious delineation of child-life. From the date of his birth (1833), Charlie must have written his work some forty years ago. How long he was engaged in its composition is not stated, but from the internal evidence yielded by the spelling and the handwriting (for the work is lithographed in exact imitation of the manuscript) we should infer that it occupied two or three years, the handwriting of the first seven chapters being in imitation of ordinary printing, while the remaining chapters appear in an ordinary schoolboy's hand. We may add that it is copiously illustrated by himself, and that the illustrations are worth their weight in gold, supplementing as they do, in a superfluously exact and curiously quaint manner, this most unique work.
He starts with this account of himself: "My name is Charles John Young, and I was born in Amfort, a pretty village in Hampshire, 1833 in July, that pleasant time when the birds sing merrily and flowers bloom sweetly. My father and mother are the kindest in the world, and I love them dearly and both alike. I shall give a description of them by and by. In the mean time I shall just say that my papa is a clergyman."
The earlier chapters describe the various migrations of the family from one parish to another, and from them we have no difficulty in recognizing in "papa" the Rev. Julian Young, who possessed no small share of the talents that distinguished his father, the celebrated tragedian, Charles Young, and which seem to have been transmitted to our author, who, we understand, has honorably served his country in Her Majesty's army. From his earliest years Charlie seems to have been strongly influenced by religious feelings. His creed was a bright and trustful one, a realization of God's presence and of the need of speaking to Him as to one who could always hear and help. When he was about three years old, we are told in the editor's interesting preface, he was often heard offering up little petitions for the supply of his child-like wants. Once, when, his nurse left him to fetch some more milk, his father overheard him saying, "O God, please let there be enough milk in the jug for me to have some more, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." Many quaint little religious reflections and scriptural allusions are interspersed throughout the book. In one place he declares that "without papa and mamma the garden would be to me what the wilderness was to John the Baptist;" while again he offers up a pathetic prayer for a baby-brother; and throughout we are struck by the fact that his religion was pre-eminently one of love. Charlie's educational advantages were of the noblest and best, home-training largely predominating. In the ninth chapter he refers in a simple matter-of-fact way to his early studies: "Mamma devotes her time in teaching me and in reading instructive books with me. Papa tells me about the productions of the earth, rivers, mountains, valleys, mines, and, most wonderful of all, the formation of the human body." Further on we read: "Nothing of any great importance occurred now for some time. My life was spent quietly in the country, as the child of a Wiltshire clergyman ought, mamma devoting her time in teaching me, and my daily play going on the same, till at last papa and mamma took me to the splendid capital of England." However much this brilliant transition may have dazzled him, he still prefers his quiet country home, arguing thus: "As to living there [in London], I should not like it. The reason why—because its noisy riots in the streets suit not my mood like the tranquil streams and the waving trees I love in England's country.... 'Tis true—oh, how true!—in the poetic words of Mr. Shakespeare, 'Man made the town, God made the country.'"