with the brightest old lady I ever met, his mother, who had known Burns and Byron and Scott; as also with his pleasant good wife and her clever sons, one of whom, in the ripeness of time, married a then charming little girl, the heiress-ward of my host, and since well appreciated in society as a grande dame; wife also to one famous for a Rugby in both hemispheres, for rifledom, the White Horse of Wilts, and now full-fledged county judgeship.  These excellent friendships survive many long years and will be transplanted elsewhere hereafter.  All this grew from a casual encounter outside a coach:  but such is life; what we call accidents are all providences, and we are guided inch by inch and minute by minute.  Tom Hughes succeeded as a county judge in Yorkshire my old schoolfellow, St. John Yates, mentioned on a recent page in connection with Andrew Irvine’s turkeycock irascibility.

    “Watch little providences:  if indeed
      Or less there be, or greater, in the sight
      Of Him who governs all by day and night,
    And sees the forest hidden in the seed: 
    Of all that happens take thou reverent heed,
      For seen in true Religion’s happier light
    (Though not unknown of Reason’s placid creed)
    All things are ordered; all by orbits move,
      Having precursors, satellites, and signs,
      Whereby the mind not doubtfully divines
      What is the will of Him who rules above,
    And takes for guidance those paternal hints
      That all is well, that thou art led by Love,
    And in thy travel trackest old footprints.”

CHAPTER XII.

PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.

And this may well be a fitting place wherein to record the origin, progress, and after long years the full completion of what is manifestly my chief authorial work in life, “Proverbial Philosophy.”  To ensure accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentimes unfaithful memory, I will give a few extracts from “a brief account” of the book, set down in 1838, at the beginning of Volume I. of “My Literary Heirloom,” now grown to many volumes, containing newspaper cuttings, anecdotes, and letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works.

“In the year 1828, when under Mr. Holt’s roof at Albury (anno aetatis meae 18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and a formal essay too heavy, and I didn’t care to versify my thoughts, so I resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon’s Proverbs or the ‘Wisdom’ of Jesus the Son of Sirach:  and I did so,—­successively, in the Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on Education:  several other pieces growing afterwards.  Whilst at Albury, my cousin showed some of these to our rector, Hugh