thropy; and how much I hated this same Dr Buck, and his horrible
"Give him t'other dip, Brandon." But all these are as things that had
long died from my own recollection.

CHAPTER FOUR.

MY PROXIMITY TO THE CLERGY IMPELS ME TO PREACH--I ADVOCATE THE VULGAR,
AND PROVE THAT NEITHER THE HUMBLE NOR THE LOW ARE NECESSARILY THE
DEBASED--CONSEQUENTLY THIS CHAPTER NEED NOT BE READ.

What with dipping, port wine, bark, and Dr Buck, at the age of four
years my limbs began to expand properly, and my countenance to assume
the hue of health. I have recorded the death of my foster-sister Mary;
but, about this time, the top-sawyer, wishing to perpetuate the dynasty
of the Brandons, began to enact _pater familias_ in a most reckless
manner. He was wrong; but this must be said in extenuation of his
impiously acting upon the divine command, "to increase and multiply,"
that at that time, Mr Malthus had not corrected the mistake of the
Omniscient, nor had Miss Harriet Martineau begun her pilgrimage after
the "preventive check." There was no longer any pretence for my
remaining at Bath, or for my worthy foster-father abstaining from work;
so we again removed, with a small family, in our search after saw-pits
and happiness, to one of the best houses in Felix Street, somewhere near
Lambeth Marsh. This place, after the experience of some time, proving
not to be sufficiently blissful, we removed to Paradise Row; some
furlongs nearer to the Father in God, his Grace the Archbishop of
Canterbury. I have a laudable pride in showing that I had a
_respectable_--I beg pardon, the word is inapplicable--I mean a grand
neighbour. "I am not the rose," said the flower in the Persian poem,
"but I have lived near the rose." I did not bloom in the archbishop's
garden, but I flourished under the wall, though on the outside. The
wall is now down, and rows of houses up in its place.

In our location in Paradise Row, the house being larger than we required
for our accommodation, we again received old Ford, the only paradise, I
am rather afraid, that will ever own him as an inmate. An awful man was
old Ford, my godfather. His mingled prayers and blasphemies, hymns and
horrid songs, defiance and remorse, groans and laughter, made everyone
hate and avoid him. Hell-fire, as he continually asserted, was ever
roaring before his eyes; and, as there is a text in the New Testament
that says, there is no salvation for him who curses the Holy Ghost, he
w