300.  Nothing is much more annoying than the intermeddling of friends, in a case like this.  The wife appeals to them, and ‘good breeding,’ that is to say, nonsense, is sure to put them on her side.  Then, they, particularly the women, when describing the surprising progress made by their own sons at school, used, if one of mine were present, to turn to him, and ask, to what school he went, and what he was learning?  I leave any one to judge of his opinion of her; and whether he would like her the better for that!  ’Bless me, so tall, and not learned any thing yet!’ ‘Oh yes, he has,’ I used to say, ’he has learned to ride, and hunt, and shoot, and fish, and look after cattle and sheep, and to work in the garden, and to feed his dogs, and to go from village to village in the dark.’  This was the way I used to manage with troublesome customers of this sort.  And how glad the children used to be, when they got clear of such criticising people!  And how grateful they felt to me for the protection which they saw that I gave them against that state of restraint, of which other people’s boys complained!  Go whither they might, they found no place so pleasant as home, and no soul that came near them affording them so many means of gratification as they received from me.

301.  In this happy state we lived, until the year 1810, when the government laid its merciless fangs upon me, dragged me from these delights, and crammed me into a jail amongst felons; of which I shall have to speak more fully, when, in the last Number, I come to speak of the duties of THE CITIZEN.  This added to the difficulties of my task of teaching; for now I was snatched away from the only scene in which it could, as I thought, properly be executed.  But even these difficulties were got over.  The blow was, to be sure, a terrible one; and, oh God! how was it felt by these poor children!  It was in the month of July when the horrible sentence was passed upon me.  My wife, having left her children in the care of her good and affectionate sister, was in London, waiting to know the doom of her husband.  When the news arrived at Botley, the three boys, one eleven, another nine, and the other seven, years old, were hoeing cabbages in that garden which had been the source of so much delight.  When the account of the savage sentence was brought to them, the youngest could not, for some time, be made to understand what a jail was; and, when he did, he, all in a tremor, exclaimed, ’Now I’m sure, William, that PAPA is not in a place like that!’ The other, in order to disguise his tears and smother his sobs, fell to work with the hoe, and chopped about like a blind person.  This account, when it reached me, affected me more, filled me with deeper resentment, than any other circumstance.  And, oh! how I despise the wretches who talk of my