A Father's Memoirs of his Child/Appendix

by Benjamin Heath Malkin

 

APPENDIX.

The following letters, &c. have been found, too late to be inserted in their proper places.

 

MY DEAR FATHER,

… But, the praise of God is great love. Well! I should like to go to Heaven very much. Then, you know, I should see my little sister Mary, and my little brother John, that are dead. So, they go to be buried! I think it is a very nice thing to go to heaven! Well! And then we should see our heavenly Father, and our Saviour. He has got a light round his head; our Saviour has!… When we go, we shall see Judas, who brought the soldiers to seize our Saviour, and put him to death: and so he went. There was St. Bartholomew, St. John, St. Peter, St. Matthew: but these were all the Saints that I know of.

T. W. M.

October 24, 1799.

 

MY DEAR MISS ——

I am very much obliged to you for the book of quadrupeds and of birds. I drew two or three sea eagles; and in the original found the sea eagle very beautifully marked. The lanner is somewhat less than the buzzard. The quill feathers of the lanner are dusky. I now learn Latin, as I believe you know: and I have got pretty far through my exercise book. The length of the ringtail is twenty inches: its claws are black. Grandfather has a very large garden; and in summer he had some of the flower called rose-campion; and some roses: but they are all gone.—So now he has no flowers at all.…

T. W. MALKIN.

Dec. 14, 1800.

 

Hackney, Sunday, Dec. 21, 1800.

MY DEAREST MRS. P——,

I am so much concerned to you, I should often like to see you. As for Mrs. B——, I shall think she must be very miserable, because Mr. B—— is dead: so now her little boy has no father, or nobody to teach him Latin and Greek; so, you know, what a sad thing that must be! The book of quadrupeds, I think, is a very useful book to me. My Mental Improvement also is a very useful book; for I too learn a great deal from it. The serval, which is beautifully spotted, is extremely fierce. These circumstances, which to me have been very curious, now are less curious. You must know, that Mrs. B——'s little boy must be very miserable, as he has no father, because Mr. B——, who was his father, is now dead, as I told you before. Now, my dear Mrs. P——, see how miserable it would make mothers and little boys, if the little boys' fathers are dead!… I now learn Latin, which I believe you know. I have three maps, England, Europe, and the World. I have also three sets of Chronological Tables; the English, the Roman, and the French. In the county of Oxfordshire is Woodstock; in the county of Devonshire is Exeter, which is the capital town; also in Cheshire is the river Wever. In Yorkshire is the town of Leeds; York the capital town; and in Northumberland, Alnewick. In Cornwall, is Launceston, the capital town. Bodmin also is in Cornwall; in Cumberland is Whitehaven; so in Lincolnshire is Boston.… Now the Latin goes on very well; for I did such a good exercise to-day, that you cannot think it. My Latin Dictionary teaches me a great deal of Latin; for I always find the words I look for, sometimes in different senses. So now, you know, you must answer my letter, or else it would not be a good one. God bless you, my dear Mrs. P——, and I desire and hope you may be well. Next month it will be very cold. Every thing will be frozen then, except us.…

 

In a letter, dated Plaxtol, Kent, July 6, 1801, he gives the following modest account of his progress in drawing.

 

"I have drawn a very nice head, a great deal larger than the original; only, as it cannot be expected otherwise from me, being only five years and eight months old, there were a few mistakes that I need not tell you of."

 

THE STORY

OF AN

OFFICERS FAMILY IN ALLESTONE.

FOR MY DEAREST MOTHER.

 

PART I.

An Allestonian family, one which was in the greatest rank and fortune, at least for the subjects of the king, were very happy on the coming of a little healthy baby, which family God had given reason to know that it would come.—According to your recommendation, I will now go on to the beginning of his education. The wise education of the parents gave the son, named in Latin Geoffricus Lanleius, great instruction in learning the alphabet. The progress that he made, having a spelling-book of the same edition as my own, enabled him to attend to the rules for reading. His progress was not discovered, till on a day he shewed it so much, that Mr. and Mrs. Lanley began to think that he might begin to learn Latin, Greek, &c. as he had before learnt well to spell. This Latin began to occur to his learning, on the first of May, in the year in which he was advancing to four years old. But unfortunately, as his mother knew more of Latin than his father, he could hardly get on from the third till the twenty-first of May, as his maternal teacher was then delivered of a baby, whom his father christened ——. Universal applause succeeded to the father, as he exercised his great diligence and knowledge of the little service; and this succeeded especially in Geoffry, who was then present. An undertaking was made, by Mr. Lanley and Geoffry, in which nothing is so surprising as Geoffry's cleverness in the occurrence of a Journey to P——t. This undertaking was made on the eighth day of the month. They, instead of going that day, spent the rest of it in wise calculations for their journey. According to their spending, they at first calculated the sum that this would afford them: next how to get a conveyance, which would convey their baggage neatly, &c. and all those little accommodations, which are necessary in a journey. Next, how to spend the time at the House of Commons, and Lords, as they were partly to spend the time in both places.—Night arrived, at least the hour of ten. Geoffry, till his sleep, continued his reflections. The next morning, in the course of hours, came, of the day in which they were to go out.…

 

THE END.

 

T. Bensley, Printer,
Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London.