Norwich was held to be in some quarters almost a second Athens. There lived there a learned man of the name of Wilkins, with whom I, alas! never came into contact, who had much to do with resuscitating the fame of the worthy Norwich physician, Sir Thomas Browne, immortal, by reason of his “Religio Medici” and “Urn Burial,” especially the latter. The Martineaus and the Taylors lived there. Johnson Fox—the far-famed Norwich weaver boy of the Anti-Corn League, and Unitarian minister, and subsequently M.P. for Oldham—had been a member of the Old Meeting, whence he had been sent to Homerton College to study for the ministry, and a sister and brother, if I remember aright, still attended at the Old Meeting. When I was a lad there still might be seen in the streets of Norwich the venerable figure of William Taylor, who had first opened up German literature to the intelligent public; and there had not long died Mrs. Taylor, the friend of Sir James Mackintosh and other distinguished personages. “She was the wife,” writes Basil Montagu, “of a shopkeeper in that city; mild and unassuming, quiet and meek, sitting amidst her large family, always occupied with her needle and domestic occupations, but always assisting, by her great knowledge, the advancement of kind and dignified sentiment. Manly wisdom and feminine gentleness were united in her with such attractive manners that she was universally loved and respected. In high thoughts and gentle deeds she greatly resembled the admirable Lucy Hutchinson, and in troubled times would have been specially distinguished for firmness in what she thought right.” Dr. Sayers was also one of the stars of the Norwich literary circle, and I recollect Mrs. Opie, who had given up the world of fashion and frivolity, had donned the Quaker dress, and at whose funeral in the Quaker Meeting-house I was present. The Quakers were at that time a power in Norwich, and John Joseph Gurney, of Earlham, close by, enjoyed quite a European reputation. It was not long that Harriet Martineau had turned her back on the Norwich of her youth. The house where she was born was in a court in Magdalen Street. But it never was her dwelling-place after her removal from it when she was three months old. Harriet was given to underrating everybody who had any sort of reputation, and she certainly underrated Norwich society, which, when I was a lad, was superior to most of our county towns. I caught now and then a few faint echoes of that world into which I was forbidden to enter. Norwich ministers were yet learned, and their people were studious. A dear old city was Norwich, with much to interest a raw lad from the country, with its Cathedral, which, as too often is the case, sadly interfered with the free life of all within its reach, with its grand Market Place filled on a Saturday with the country farmers’ wives, who had come to sell the produce of their dairy and orchard and chickenyard, and who returned laden with