n the subject of this Memoir, who was
born of the same mother. Robert was a sickly infant; and, through his
boyhood and youth, continuing to be of delicate frame and tender health,
it was deemed best, according to the country phrase, to _breed him a
scholar_; for it was not likely that he would be able to earn a
livelihood by bodily labour. At that period few of these dales were
furnished with schoolhouses; the children being taught to read and write
in the chapel; and in the same consecrated building, where he officiated
for so many years both as preacher and schoolmaster, he himself received
the rudiments of his education. In his youth he became schoolmaster at
Loweswater; not being called upon, probably, in that situation, to teach
more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. But, by the assistance of a
'Gentleman' in the neighbourhood, he acquired, at leisure hours, a
knowledge of the classics, and became qualified for taking holy orders.
Upon his ordination, he had the offer of two curacies: the one, Torver,
in the vale of Coniston,--the other, Seathwaite, in his native vale. The
value of each was the same, _viz_., five pounds _per annum_: but the
cure of Seathwaite having a cottage attached to it, as he wished to
marry, he chose it in preference. The young person on whom his
affections were fixed, though in the condition of a domestic servant,
had given promise, by her serious and modest deportment, and by her
virtuous dispositions, that she was worthy to become the helpmate of a
man entering upon a plan of life such as he had marked out for himself.
By her frugality she had stored up a small sum of money, with which they
began house-keeping. In 1735 or 1736, he entered upon his curacy; and,
nineteen years afterwards, his situation is thus described, in some
letters to be found in the _Annual Register_ for 1760, from which the
following is extracted:--

'To MR. ----.
'Coniston, July 26, 1754.

'Sir,--I was the other day upon a party of pleasure, about five or six
miles from this place, where I met with a very striking object, and of a
nature not very common. Going into a clergyman's house (of whom I had
frequently heard), I found him sitting at the head of a long square
table, such as is commonly used in this country by the lower class of
people, dressed in a coarse blue frock, trimmed with black horn buttons;
a checked shirt, a leathern strap about his neck for a st