while to the left stretched the valley of the Wey, its green pastures following its still waters as they flow gently along at the base of the wooded range of hills which form the outworks of Moor Park, and which end in the noble eminence of Crooksbury Hill—an eminence, unlike any other in Surrey, rising into a cone, crested with Scotch firs. "Here," he says, "I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and magpies. The hill was a famous object in the neighbourhood. It served as the superlative degree of height. 'As high as Crooksbury Hill' meant with us the utmost degree of height."
"A father like ours," he goes on to say, "it will be readily supposed, did not suffer us to eat the bread of idleness. I do not remember the time when I did not earn my own living. My first occupation was driving the small birds from the turnip seed and the rooks from the peas. When I first trudged a field, with my wooden bottle and my satchel swung over my shoulders, I was hardly able to climb the gates and stiles; and at the close of the day to reach home was a task of infinite difficulty. My next employment was weeding wheat, and leading a single horse at harrowing barley. Hoeing peas followed; and hence I arrived at the honour of joining the reapers in harvest, driving the team, and holding the plough. We were all strong and laborious; and my father used to boast that he had four boys, the eldest of whom was but fifteen years old, who did as much work as any three men in the parish of Farnham. Honest pride and happy days!"
"At eleven years," he told the public, in a choice morsel of autobiography which he introduced into an electioneering address, " my employment was clipping of box edges and weeding beds of flowers in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester, at the castle of Farnham, my native town. I had always been fond of beautiful gardens; and a gardener who had just come from the King's gardens at Kew gave such a description of them as made me instantly resolve to work in these gardens. The next morning, without saying a word to any one, off I set, with no clothes except those on my back, and with thirteen halfpence in my pocket. I found that I must go to Richmond, and I accordingly went on, from place to place inquiring my way thither. A long
