neighbourhood, and the benefits he conferred upon it), Archbishop Sandys, free schools were founded in these parts of the kingdom in much greater numbers than elsewhere. The learned professions derived many ornaments from this source; but a more remarkable consequence was that, till within the last forty years or so, merchants' counting-houses and offices, in the lower departments of which a certain degree of scholastic attainment was requisite, were supplied in a great measure from Cumberland and Westmoreland. Numerous and large fortunes were the result of the skill, industry, and integrity which the young men thus instructed carried with them to the metropolis.

That superiority no longer exists; not so much, I trust, from a slackening on the part of the teachers, or an indisposition of the inhabitants to profit by their free schools, but because the kingdom at large has become sensible of the advantages of school instruction, and we of the north consequently have competitors from every quarter. But, after all, worldly advancement and preferment neither are nor ought to be the main end of instruction, either in schools or elsewhere, and particularly in those which are in rural places, and scantily endowed. It is in the order of Providence, as we are all aware, that most men must end their temporal course pretty much as they began it; nor will the thoughtful repine at this dispensation. In lands where nature in the many is not trampled upon by injustice, feelingly may the peasant say to the courtier,

The sun, that bids your diamond blaze,
To deck our lily deigns.

Contentment, according to the common adage, is better than riches and why is it better? Not merely because there can be no happiness without it, but for the sake, also, of its moral dignity. Mankind, we know, are placed on earth to have their hearts and understandings exercised and improved,

.

some in one sphere, and some in another, to undergo various trials, and to perform divers duties; that duty which, in the world's estimation, may seem the least, often being the most important. Well and wisely has it been said, in words which I need not scruple to quote here, where extreme poverty and abject misery are unknown :—

God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state

Is kingly-thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest ;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

Thus am I naturally led to the third and last point in the declaration of the ancient trust-deed, which I mean to touch upon: Youth shall be instructed in grammar, writing, reading, and other good discipline, meet and convenient for them, for the honour of God.'

Now, my friends and neighbours, I am not going to say that religious instruction, the most important of all, is neglected in schools elsewhere; far from it; but I affirm, that it is too often given with reference, less to the affections, to the imagination, and to the practical duties, than to subtle distinctions in points of doctrine, and to facts in scripture history, of which a knowledge may be brought out by a catechetical process. This error, great though it be, ought to be looked at with indulgence, because it is a tempting thing for teachers unduly to exercise the understanding and memory inasmuch as progress in the departments in which these faculties are employed is thus most obviously proved to the teacher himself, and most flatteringly exhibited to the inspectors of schools and casual lookers on.

A still more lamentable error, which proceeds much from the same cause, is an overstrained application to mental processes of arithmetic and mathematics, and a too minute attention to departments of natural and civil history.

In

How much of trick may mix with this we will not ask; but the display of precocious intellectual power in these branches is often astonishing: and, in proportion as it is so, may, for the most part, be pronounced not only useless, but injurious. The training that fits a boxer for victory in the ring gives him strength that cannot, and is not required to, be kept up for ordinary labour, and often lays the foundation of subsequent weakness and fatal disease. like manner, there being in after life no call for these extraordinary powers of mind, and little use for the knowledge, the powers decay, and the knowledge withers and drops off. Here is then not only a positive injury, but a loss of opportunities for culture of intellect and acquiring information, which, as being in a course of regular demand, would be, hereafter, the one strengthened, and the other, naturally increased.

All this mischief, my friends, originates in a decay of that feeling which our fathers had uppermost in their hearts, viz., that the business of education should be conducted for the honour of God. And here I must direct your attention to a fundamental mistake, by which this age, so distinguished for its marvellous progress in arts and sciences, is unhappily characterised-a mistake, manifested in the use of the word cducation, which is habitually confounded with tuition, or school instruction; this is indeed a very important part of education, but when it is taken for the whole, we are deceived and betrayed. Education, according to the derivation of the word, and in the only use of which it is strictly justifiable, comprehends all those processes and influences, come from whence they may, that conduce to the best development of the bodily powers, and of the moral, intellectual, and spiritual faculties which the position of the individual admits of. . . . To education like this vigilance of parents is indispensably

necessary. It is through the silent operation of example that parents become infinitely the most important tutors of their children, without appearing, or positively meaning, to be so. . . It is related of Burns, the celebrated Scottish poet, that once, while, in the company of a friend, he was looking from an eminence over a wide tract of country, he said that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind that none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and worth which they contained. How were those happy and worthy people educated? By the influence of hereditary good example at home, and by their parochial schoolmasters opening the way for the admonitions and exhortations of their clergy; that was at a time when knowledge was, perhaps, better than now distinguished from smatterings of information, and when knowledge was more thought of in due subordination to wisdom. . . . And now, after renewing our expression of regret that the benevolent founder is not here to perform the ceremony himself, we will proceed to lay the first stone of the intended edifice."

APPENDIX V.

ON THE PORTRAITS OF WORDSWORTH.

I.

THE earliest portrait of Wordsworth, of which there is any record, was taken in 1797,-during the Alfoxden days, -by an artist then living at Stowey: It was a half-length figure (14 in. by 10), and is mentioned by Joseph Cottle in his Early Recollections chiefly relating to S. T. Coleridge, vol.

i. p. 317. It represented Wordsworth as he was in his twenty-seventh year.

Nothing seems to have been heard of this picture for ninety years, till it turned up at Sotheby's saleroom in London, in July 1887. It is now in the possession of Mr George, bookseller, Bristol. Its artistic merit is not

great, but its historical interest is considerable.

II.

In the following year (1798) Robert Hancock took a drawing in black chalk for Joseph Cottle. This was engraved by R. Woodman for Cottle's Recollections, along with portraits of Coleridge, Southey, and Lamb-all drawn by Hancock-in the years in which each published his first volume of poems. The originals are now together in the National Portrait Gallery at South Kensington, having been purchased by the trustees in May 1877. Like all the rest, Wordsworth's is on a small scale. He is represented as wearing a dark buttoned coat and white cravat, seated in a wooden chair. The face is seen in profile, turned to the left; the complexion tinted with red. Of this picture Cottle says, 'The portrait of Mr Wordsworth was taken also by Hancock, and was an undoubted likeness, universally acknowledged to be such at the time.' Referring to the four portraits together he adds, 'The time in which these four men of genius were drawn was perhaps the most advantageous for exhibiting their genuine characters; in which case the likenesses contained in the following work are those which might most faithfully and favourably descend to posterity.' This picture of Wordsworth passed from Cottle to his daughter, Mrs Green; thence to Messrs Fawcett and Noseda, after which it was bought by Colonel Francis

See Early Recollections chiefly relating to S. T. Coleridge, by Joseph Cottle. London, 1837. Preface, p. xxxiii.