ld in contempt; and felt a much greater propensity to join in the
active and hardy sports of her brothers, than to confine herself to
those of her own sex.

About the time that Mary completed the fifth year of her age, her father
removed to a small distance from his former habitation, and took a farm
near the Whalebone upon Epping Forest, a little way out of the
Chelmsford road. In Michaelmas 1765, he once more changed his residence,
and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking in Essex,
eight miles from London. In this situation some of their nearest
neighbours were, Bamber Gascoyne, esquire, successively member of
parliament for several boroughs, and his brother, Mr. Joseph Gascoyne.
Bamber Gascoyne resided but little on this spot; but his brother was
almost a constant inhabitant, and his family in habits of the most
frequent intercourse with the family of Mary. Here Mr. Wollstonecraft
remained for three years. In September 1796, I accompanied my wife in a
visit to this spot. No person reviewed with greater sensibility, the
scenes of her childhood. We found the house uninhabited, and the garden
in a wild and ruinous state. She renewed her acquaintance with the
market-place, the streets, and the wharf, the latter of which we found
crowded with barges, and full of activity.

In Michaelmas 1768, Mr. Wollstonecraft again removed to a farm near
Beverley in Yorkshire. Here the family remained for six years, and
consequently, Mary did not quit this residence, till she had attained
the age of fifteen years and five months. The principal part of her
school-education passed during this period; but it was not to any
advantage of infant literature, that she was indebted for her subsequent
eminence; her education in this respect was merely such, as was afforded
by the day-schools of the place, in which she resided. To her
recollections Beverley appeared a very handsome town, surrounded by
genteel families, and with a brilliant assembly. She was surprized, when
she visited it in 1795, upon her voyage to Norway, to find the reality
so very much below the picture in her imagination.

Hitherto Mr. Wollstonecraft had been a farmer; but the restlessness of
his disposition would not suffer him to content himself with the
occupation in which for some years he had been engaged, and the
temptation of a commercial speculation of some sort being held out to
him, he removed to a house in Queen's-Row, in Hoxton near London, for