the habit of annually paying a visit to Bath for six weeks or two months. During one of these excursions it so happened, that I, together with my two sisters, one four years older, the other two years younger than myself, contrived to get into a room, up stairs, where were deposited on a wooden stand, near the cieling, two large celestial and terrestrial globes, each covered with a green cloth. This spectacle no sooner attracted my notice, than I determined to discover what was under the green covers. Accordingly I contrived, with the help of my sisters, whom I prevailed on to assist me, on the express condition and solemn promise that I would do no mischief, to place a table immediately under the said stand; upon the table I deposited a chair, and upon the chair I set a stool, and mounted up, at the imminent hazard of breaking my neck, to investigate this business. Scarcely had I laid hold of the legs of the stand, which were fastened into the wall, and slung the whole weight of my body upon one hand, while with the other I proceeded to the green veil, which kept the appa

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ratus from my view, than down came the stand, the stool, the chair, the table, and myself from the top of the cieling to the ground; the globes were shivered into a thousand pieces, and the signs of the zodiac, and the zones, and the rivers, and the mountains, and the vallies, and the seas, and the lakes were all jumbled together in a most unscientific manner. My sisters, terrified almost out of their senses, ran away screaming, and crying out, that John had done all the mischief, in spite of their admonition to the contrary. I was well aware the room was no place for me, after this exhibition of my skill in the art of destroying valuable furniture; wherefore, I made the best of my way down stairs, and flew into the garden, and concealed myself in a thick hazel coppice. I had not remained long in my hiding-place before I heard my name vociferated, in no very gentle tone, by my mother. I debated with myself whether I should appear or not; at length, I considered, that as I was now seven years old, I was too big to submit to corporeal castigation from a female hand, and that it was coward

ly to skulk; whereupon I came out of my retreat, and presented myself before my mother, the form of whose visage was changed, so great was her fury. After some very vehement scolding, she was proceeding to lay violent hands upon me, when I signified both by voice and gesture, that I would suffer no such liberty to be taken with me. She, forthwith, called to a man servant, whom she ordered to secure me. I now began to think seriously of my defence, and pulled out of my waistcoat pocket a little two-penny, blunt, edgeless knife, which my father had a few days before sent me from Bath, and solemnly assevered, that I would be the death of any one who approached me. The servant, a good tempered man, smiled at the earnestness of my look, and the threatening tone which I assumed; but, being urged by the reiterated commands and menaces of my mother, whose wrath, every moment, increased, and made rapid advances towards a delirious paroxysm, seized me in his arms and bore me, spite of all my kicking, and struggling, and bitter denunciations of vengeance, to the door of

the library, an old, awkward, spacious, gloomy building, quite away from the house. The door was unlocked, and in I was thrust. I objected strongly to this mode of proceeding, most particularly, on account of a picture as large as life, representing a murderer in the act of stabbing an old man: You little wretch,' cried my mother, what harm can a dead picture do you? it never did half the mischief you have done, it never threw down two great globes as you did.' I will buy some new globes,' said I somewhat sulkily. You buy new globes! if you was sold for a galley-slave, you would never be able to replace those globes; so hold your tongue, for I will keep you locked up till your father comes home, and I expect him in about three weeks.' The door was locked upon me, and my mother departed. I listened till I could no longer hear the sound of her footsteps; I then cast my eye round the vast, and cheerless, and dreary room, but thinly furnished with books, when the picture again caught my eye, and filled my mind with perturbation; for, notwithstanding what my mother had said, I found

my fears increase every moment. I gazed upon the canvas; indeed I had been very often terrified by the nurses, and other abominable maid-servants, with tales of ghosts, and hobgoblins, and witches, and apparitions; and once had been carried by an old, surly, brutal man-servant, through a row of buildings, disjointed, shattered, and ruinous, and through a long dark passage, and across a small gloomy court-yard, into an arched very dark damp room, which had no light, save from a narrow, low entrance, and a little iron grated hole in a thick dungeon-like wall, and left in this place, called the spirit's hole, for near two hours, in a state nearer death than life, absolutely petrified with horror; all which had rendered me a most pitiful coward, and an implicit believer in the existence of spirits, and ghosts, and vampires, and demons, and I know not what phantasies of the brain, which were sources of great torment to me then, and much inconvenience in after life. My terror increased, but there was no means of escape, and, assuming a courage which I did not feel, I marched up to the picture