CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIII.

LIFE OF HOWARD,

CURIOSITIES OF ART.-II. MECHANICS-MANUFACTURES,

THE CAMISARDS,

ANECDOTES OF SHOEMAKERS

JAMES LACKINGTON,

THOMAS HOLCROFT,

WILLIAM GIFFORD,

NOAH WORCESTER, D.D.

JOHN POUNDS,

STORY OF A FRENCH PRISONER OF WAR IN ENGLAND,

ROB ROY AND THE CLAN MACGREGOR,

THERE IS NO HURRY!-A TALE OF LIFE-ASSURANCE, BY MRS

ABBY'S YEAR IN LOWELL.-A TALE OF SELF-DENIAL,

SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY,

119

EDINBURGH :

PRINTED BY W. AND R. CHAMBERS.

1846.

OHN HOWARD, whose name as a philanthropist must be familiar to a number of our readers, was born at Clapton, in the parish of Hackney, in the immediate vicinity of London, in or about the year 1727. His father was an upholsterer and carpet warehouseman, who had acquired a considerable fortune in trade, and had retired from business to live at Hackney. Being a dissenter, and a man of strong religious principles, he sent his son at an early age to be educated by a schoolmaster named Worsley, who kept an establishment at some distance from London, where the sons of many opulent dissenters, friends of Mr Howard, were already boarded. The selection appears to have been injudicious; for in after-life Mr Howard assured an intimate friend, with greater indignation than he used to express on most subjects, that, after a continuance of seven years at this school, he left it

not fully taught any one thing." From Mr Worsley's school he was removed, probably about the age of fourteen, to one of a superior description in London, the master of which, Mr Eames, was a man of some reputation for learning. His acquisitions at both seminaries seem to have been of the meagre kind then deemed sufficient for a person who was to be engaged in commercial pursuits; and it is the assertion of Mr Howard's biographer, Dr Aikin, founded on personal knowledge, that he "was never able to speak or write his native language with grammatical correctness, and that his acquaintance with other languages—the French perhaps excepted-was slight and superficial." In this, however, he did not differ perhaps from the generality of persons similarly circumstanced in their youth, and destined, like him, for business.

At the age of fifteen or sixteen Mr Howard was bound apprentice by his father to Messrs Newnham and Shipley, extensive wholesale grocers in Watling Street, who received a premium of £700 with him. His father dying, however, shortly afterwards, and the state of his health or his natural tastes indisposing him for the mode of life for which he had been destined, he made arrangements with his masters for the purchase of the remaining term of his apprenticeship, and quitted business. By the will of his father, who is described as a strict methodical man, of somewhat penurious disposition, he was not to come into possession of the property till he had attained his twenty-fourth year. On attaining that age, he was to be entitled to the sum of £7000 in money, together with all his father's landed and moveable property: his only sister receiving, as her share, £8000 in money, with certain additions of jewels, &c. which had belonged to her mother. Although nominally under the charge of guardians, Mr Howard was allowed a considerable share in the management of his own property. He had his house at Clapton, which his father's parsimonious habits had suffered to fall into decay, repaired or rebuilt, intending to make it his general place of residence. Connected with the repairing of this house an anecdote is told of Mr Howard, which will appear characteristic. He used to go every day to superintend the progress of the workmen; and an old man who had been gardener to his father, and who continued about the house until it was let some time afterwards, used to tell, as an instance of Mr Howard's goodness of disposition when young, that every day during the repairs he would be in the street, close by the garden wall, just as the baker's cart was passing, when he would regularly buy a loaf and throw it over the wall, saying to the gardener as he came in, ،، Harry, go and look among the cabbages; you will find something for yourself and family." After passing his twentieth year, Mr Howard, being of delicate health, quitted his native country, and made a tour through France and Italy, which lasted a year or two; but of the particulars of which we have no account. On his return to England, probably about the year 1750, he took lodgings in Stoke Newing