ion, which was nearly ended with his life at the age of
fourteen by a carriage accident which shattered and mangled his right
arm, crippling it permanently. As so often happens, the disaster was
really a piece of good fortune: it turned him to or confirmed him in
quiet antiquarian scholarship, and established connections which
ultimately led to the 'Legends'; he may owe immortality to it.

After passing through St. Paul's (London) and Brasenose (Oxford), he
studied law, but finally entered the church. After a couple of small
curacies in Kent, he was made rector of Snargate and curate of Warehorn,
near Romney Marsh; all four in a district where smuggling was a chief
industry, and the Marsh in especial a noted haunt of desperadoes (for
smugglers then took their lives in their hands), of which the 'Legends'
are rich in reminiscences. In 1819, during this incumbency, he wrote a
novel, 'Baldwin,' which was a failure; and part of another, 'My Cousin
Nicholas,' which, finished fifteen years later, had fair success as a
serial in Blackwood's Magazine.

An opportunity offering in 1821, he stood for a minor canonry in St.
Paul's Cathedral, London, and obtained it; his income was less than
before, but he had entered the metropolitan field, which brought him
rich enjoyment and permanent fame. He paid a terrible price for them:
his unhealthy London house cost him the lives of three of his children.
To make up for his shortened means he became editor of the London
Chronicle and a contributor to various other periodicals, including the
notorious weekly John Bull, sometime edited by Theodore Hook. In 1824 he
became a priest in the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace, and soon
after gained a couple of excellent livings in Essex, which put him at
ease financially.

He was inflexible in principle, a firm Tory, though without rancor. He
was very High Church, but had no sympathy with the Oxford movement or
Catholicism. He preached careful and sober sermons, without oratorical
display and with rigid avoidance of levity. He would not make the church
a field either for fireworks or jokes, or even for displays of
scholarship or intellectual gymnastics. In his opinion, religious
establishments were kept up to advance religion and morals. And both he
and his wife wrought zealously in the humble but exacting field of
parochial good works.

He was, however, fast becoming one of the chief ornaments of that
brilliant group of London wits whose rep