Very different, however, was the response of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a courteous and dignified epistle, expressing his pleasure at being able to comply with my request, and fifteen handsome octavo volumes of sermons were forthwith forwarded to me from Hatchard's. I had other similar experiences, and the result was that when my library was thrown open to the public the amount of theology which it contained far outweighed every other department of literature. However, people came to my reading-room, and I was fortunately able to provide them with other entertainment besides the reading of old sermons. I started a course of lectures and readings. I blush to say that I distinguished myself one evening by reading the play of _Macbeth_ to an unhappy audience of bored victims. Heaven forgive me! I carried on my West End Institute for some years, started a flourishing penny bank in connection with it, and formed numerous acquaintances among the more intelligent artisans of the district; but at last the building was wanted for an extension of the Sunday schools connected with my father's congregation, and the little performance came to an end. I trust it had not made me an incurable prig, but I fear that it did not do anybody very much good; though, perhaps, it kept some out of mischief. No account of Newcastle at this period (1850-60) would be complete without some reference to one of its most notable inhabitants, Mr. Joseph Cowen, commonly known at that time to his fellow-townsmen as "Joe." Mr. Cowen's subsequent career in Parliament, brief though it was, gained for him a reputation for eloquence hardly inferior to that enjoyed by the most illustrious of his contemporaries. But in those early days of my youth it was not his eloquence but his advanced opinions about which his fellow-townsmen thought most. He openly professed to be a Republican, in theory at all events, and all his sympathies were engaged on the side of the oppressed nationalities of Europe. A man of culture, of commanding abilities, and of considerable wealth, he lived by choice in the plainest fashion, delighting to be known as one of the people. He dressed at all times in the kind of suit which a Northumbrian pitman wears when not actually at work. Years afterwards, when he had just thrilled all England by a great speech in the House of Commons on the subject of Russian oppression, I chanced to meet him one day in Pall Mall, and, stopping to talk to him, was amused to see the glances of curiosity which were cast at the strangely attired man who had found his way to that fashionable thoroughfare.