Charles is naturally indignant at the dishonour thus done to his house; and writes with considerable bitterness against the Protestant laws which subjected his Catholic ancestors and Catholic brethren to insult and persecution, and ejected them from their tenements; their only crime being a conscientious adherence to the faith of their fathers, professed by all England for nine long centuries before the Reformation. This bitterness assumes a bold and contemptuous form, mixed with a little dash of bravado, I think, when speaking of the prominent personages of the Reformed religion. Nevertheless, I like it for its open and true candour, and will therefore quote it :

"My ancestors," he says, "acted wisely. I myself (as I have already told the public in a printed letter) would rather run the risk of going to Hell with St. Edward the Confessor, the Venerable Bede, and St. Thomas of Canterbury, than make a dash at heaven in company with Harry VIII., Queen Bess, and Dutch William."

Waterton is proud of his ancestry, as he may well be, without vanity; although he gives us to understand, distinctly enough, that he does not set too high a value upon this hereditary honour.

"I come in a direct line from Sir Thomas

More," he says, "through my grandmother; whilst by the mother's side I am akin to the Bedingfields of Oxburgh, to the Charltons of Hazleside, and to the Swineburns of Capheaton; yet I firmly believe that we all are descended from Adam, and his wife Eve, &c."

His grandfather was sent prisoner to York a short time before the battle of Culloden. on account of his well-known attachment to Charles Stuart; and on his return he found that his horses

had been sent to Wakefield, there to be kept at his own expense. The magistrates, however, allowed him to purchase a horse for his own riding, provided it was under five pounds!

remain in Not being

horses and Such were

Cromwell broke down the drawbridge leading to the hall, and some of his musket-balls one of the old oaken gates to this day. able to get in, he carried off all the cattle his men could lay their hands on. the persecutions to which Waterton's family were subject on account of their religion; and it is no wonder that Charles gets very angry when speaking of them. He himself is a staunch, out-andout Catholic; has no sympathy with our modern notions about religious freedom; believes in the infallibility of the Pope; and has no doubt of the speedy return of his Holiness to the possession of his long-lost kingdoms of Europe.

In the autobiography already alluded to, Waterton has furnished us with some anecdotes of his boyhood, and school-days, which are interesting preludes to his subsequent history, and shew what a strong bias Nature had originally given to the mind and disposition of the future naturalist. He was always a wild boy of the woods, an intense lover of Nature in all her operations; and his instincts continually impelled him to watch the haunts of birds and animals. When he was but eight years of age, he was an inveterate birds'nester, and used to climb trees, and go grubbing in the dark holes of ancient buildings for starlings' eggs. Upon one of these occasions he had mounted the roof of an out-house, and stood in a very perilous situation, although he was quite unconscious of his danger. He had just got to a starling's nest under one of the slates, when he was observed by

the old housekeeper, who, trembling for her young master's safety, did not dare to call out, lest he should lose his presence of mind and his foothold together. In this dilemma the good old soul bethought her of an expedient, which none but a kind-hearted woman could have devised. So away she toddled to the store-room, and returned with a great batch of gingerbread, which she held up to the daring boy, and in this manner lured him down. "And then she seized me," says Waterton, "as if I had been a malefactor." The good old dame was so glad to have him safe in her arms!

At nine years old he was sent to a school in the North of England, where his incessant wanderings in search ofonithological architecture" got him many sound birchings, but did not at all cure him of this inbred propensity. A love of romance and adventure characterized his earliest youth. There was a large horse-pond near the play-ground, which Waterton had frequently eyed with a longing desire to take a cruise upon it. It was, however, beyond the limits assigned to the ramblings of the scholars, and he knew that if he violated the rules of the school he should be punished. Nevertheless, the water tempted him, and he resolved to venture upon it. "An oblong tub, used for holding dough before it is baked, had just been placed by the side of the pond;" so he took a couple of stakes out of the hedge to serve as oars, got into the tub, and pushed off. When he was half over he beheld the terrible master, and the late Sir John Lawson, of Brough Hall, just rounding a corner, and bearing down upon him at full sail. He was so frightened, that he first lost a stake, then his balance, and finally tumbled overboard, rising again covered with mud and dirt. Sir John, however, saved

him from the consequences of this disobedience to orders, and called it a brave adventure; although the master's face looked like the clock of doom to poor Waterton, as he stood trembling upon the muddy bank.

He

So deeply was the mind of the boy infatuated with birds' nests, and the woods, that he was haunted with adventures in his dreams, and one of them very nearly led to fatal results. "About one o'clock in the morning, Monsieur Raquedel, the family chaplain, thought that he heard an unusual noise in the apartment next to his bed room. arose, and on opening the door of his chamber whence the noise had proceeded, "saw me," says Waterton, in his memoir-" in the act of lifting up the sash; and he was just in time to save me from going out at a window three stories high. I was fast asleep; and as soon as he caught hold of me I gave a loud shriek. I thought I was on my way to a neighbouring wood, in which I knew of a crow's nest."

Waterton was soon after removed to Stonyhurst, a fine mansion, which Mr. Weld, of Ludworth Castle, in Dorsetshire, had generously granted to the Jesuits, after the armies of the French republic, had made it unsafe for them to remain at their celebrated college in the town of Liege. Stonyhurst is situated near Clithero, in Lancashire, and is well known as a first class college for the education of Roman Catholic children. Here Waterton commenced a systematic course of studies, although it was found impossible to break him off his old habits. He is deeply indebted to these good fathers, of whom he speaks with great reverence and affection. They watched over his morals with intense and incessant care, and laid the foun

dation of those virtuous habits and resolutions which have guarded him safely through a long life of roaming adventures, and have made his name beloved in his present retirement.

His immediate master was Father Clifford, a first cousin of the noble lord of that name; a man of rare talents, and great insight. He had carefully studied the character of his young pupil, and foresaw the destiny which was in reserve for him.

66

You

"One day," says Waterton, "when I was in the class of poetry, and which was about two years before I left the college for good and all, he called me up to his room. Charles," said he to me, in a tone of voice perfectly irresistible, "I have long been studying your disposition, and I clearly foresee that nothing will keep you at home. will journey into far distant countries, where you will be exposed to many dangers. There is only one way for you to escape. Promise me, that from this day forward, you will never put your lips to wine, or spirituous liquors. The sacrifice is nothing," he added, "but in the end, it will prove of incalculable advantage to you." I agreed to his enlightened proposal; and from that hour to this, which is now about nine-and thirty years, I have never swallowed one glass of any kind of wine, or of ardent spirits." This was admirable advice, and as admirably followed, and shews what an affectionate understanding existed between the youth and his venerable tutor; and how sacred a thing the young man regarded that early pledge. This is to me, the most affecting record in these brief memoirs.

Waterton

During his stay at Stonyhurst, evinced all the real characteristics of his disposition, and was constantly wandering out of bounds in