ivation of his garden, too, he displayed the same taste. Few
persons excelled him in the management of vegetables, fruit, and flowers.
His green Indian corn--his Carolina beans--his water-melons, could hardly
have been exceeded at New York. His wall-fruit was equally splendid, and
much as flowers have been studied since that day, I never saw a more
glowing or a more fragrant autumn garden than that at Botley, with its
pyramids of hollyhocks, and its masses of china-asters, of cloves, of
mignonnette, and of variegated geranium. The chances of life soon parted
us, as, without grave faults on either side, people do lose sight of one
another; but I shall always look back with pleasure and regret to that
visit.

While we were there, a grand display of English games, especially of
single-stick and wrestling, took place under Mr. Cobbett's auspices.
Players came from all parts of the country--the south, the west, and the
north--to contend for fame and glory, and also, I believe, for a
well-filled purse; and this exhibition which--quite forgetting the
precedent set by a certain princess, _de jure_, called Rosalind, and
another princess, _de facto_, called Celia--she termed barbarous, was the
cause of his quarrel with my mamma that might have been, Mrs. Blamire.

In my life I never saw two people in a greater passion. Each was
thoroughly persuaded of being in the right, either would have gone to the
stake upon it, and of course the longer they argued the more determined
became their conviction. They said all manner of uncivil things; they
called each other very unpretty names; she got very near to saying, "Sir,
you're a savage;" he did say, "Ma'am, you're a fine lady;" they talked,
both at once, until they could talk no longer, and I have always
considered it as one of the greatest pieces of Christian forgiveness that
I ever met with, when Mr. Cobbett, after they had both rather cooled down
a little, invited Mrs. Blamire to dine at his house the next day. She,
less charitable, declined the invitation, and we parted.

As I have said, my father and he had too much of the hearty English
character in common not to be great friends; I myself was somewhat of a
favorite (I think because of my love for poetry, though he always said
not), and I shall never forget the earnestness with which he congratulated
us both on our escape from such a wife and such a mother. "She'd have been
the death of you!" quoth he, and he believed it. Doubtles