Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/166

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able to begin learning, he practised as much as he could. He, however, by his diligence, attentive thought, and industry, also well-timed magnanimity, generosity, &c. acquired wonderful instruction. When he was six or seven years old, he undertook a journey to Charnichock, in which he was very successful."

The people appear to have arrived but by degrees at that state of moral perfection, which Thomas imagines them to have attained in his own time. We are informed in one of the earliest letters, that King James the First was of a bad disposition, and committed suicide. In the next, the scene is varied to a more agreeable subject, by the birth of some Allestonian children.

"The principal of them was very good: he learned every language of my imagination, and when he grew up, was continually building, and things of that sort."

In another place, he asserts "this history to be a rational work enough." Such a claim is perhaps only to be admitted with