twigs of trees; and, in short, every thing that they thought calculated to delight me.  The moment the hamper arrived, I, casting aside every thing else, set to work to answer every question, to give new directions, and to add anything likely to give pleasure at Botley. Every hamper brought one ‘letter,’ as they called it, if not more, from every child; and to every letter I wrote an answer, sealed up and sent to the party, being sure that that was the way to produce other and better letters; for, though they could not read what I wrote, and though their own consisted at first of mere scratches, and afterwards, for a while, of a few words written down for them to imitate, I always thanked them for their ‘pretty letter’; and never expressed any wish to see them write better; but took care to write in a very neat and plain hand myself, and to do up my letter in a very neat manner.

304.  Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought I was doomed to incessant mortification, and to rage that must extinguish my mental powers, I found in my children, and in their spotless and courageous and most affectionate mother, delights to which the callous hearts of those tigers were strangers.  ’Heaven first taught letters for some wretch’s aid.’  How often did this line of Pope occur to me when I opened the little spuddling ‘letters’ from Botley!  This correspondence occupied a good part of my time:  I had all the children with me, turn and turn about; and, in order to give the boys exercise, and to give the two eldest an opportunity of beginning to learn French, I used, for a part of the two years, to send them a few hours in the day to an ABBE, who lived in Castle-street, Holborn.  All this was a great relaxation to my mind; and, when I had to return to my literary labours, I returned fresh and cheerful, full of vigour, and full of hope, of finally seeing my unjust and merciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without caring a straw on whom their fall might bring calamity, so that my own family were safe; because, say what any one might, the community, taken as a whole, had suffered this thing to be done unto us.

305.  The paying of the work-people, the keeping of the accounts, the referring to books, the writing and reading of letters; this everlasting mixture of amusement with book-learning, made me, almost to my own surprise, find, at the end of the two years, that I had a parcel of scholars growing up about me; and, long before the end of the time, I had dictated many Registers to my two eldest children.  Then, there was copying out of books, which taught spelling correctly.  The calculations about the farming affairs forced arithmetic upon us:  the use, the necessity, of the thing, led to the study.  By-and-by, we had to look into the laws to know what to do about the highways, about the game, about the poor, and all