dress, the simplicity of my manner, my confident and lively air, and, doubtless, his own compassion besides, induced the gardener, who was a Scotchman, I remember, to give me victuals, find me lodgings, and set me to work. And it was during the period that I was at Kew, that the present King (Geo. IV.), and two of his brothers laughed at the oddness of my dress, while I was sweeping the grass-plat round the foot of the pagoda. The gardener, seeing me fond of books, lent me some gardening books to read; but these I could not relish after my ‘Tale of a Tub,’ which I carried about with me wherever I went; and when I, at about twenty [24] years old, lost it in a box that fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy, in North America, the loss gave me greater pain then I have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds.” How long the employment at Kew lasted, and how he got home again, does not appear. The life at Farnham was probably resumed before the approach of winter; for, either the year before this, or that immediately succeeding, he mentions being sent down from Farnham to Steeple Langford, in Wiltshire, with a horse; remaining at the latter place “from the month of June till the fall of the year.” Cobbett must have been about fourteen years of age at the time alluded to in the following incident:-- “My father used to take one of us with him every year to the great hop-fair at Weyhill. The fair was held at Old Michaelmastide, and the journey was to us a sort of reward for the labours of the summer. It happened to be my turn to go thither the very year that Long Island was taken by the British. A great company of hop-merchants and farmers were just sitting down to supper as the post arrived, bringing in the ‘Extraordinary Gazette,’ which announced the victory. A hop-factor from London took the paper, placed his chair upon the table, and began to read with an audible voice. He was opposed, a dispute ensued, and my father retired, taking me by the hand, to another apartment, where we supped with about a dozen others of the same sentiments. Here Washington’s health, and success to the Americans, were repeatedly toasted, and this was the first time, as far as I can recollect, that I ever heard the General’s name mentioned. Little did I then dream that I should ever see the man, and still less that I should hear some of his own countrymen reviling and execrating him.”