ned excellence even as he has done--the
little dark man with the brown coat and the top-boots, whose name will
one day be considered the chief ornament of the old town, and whose works
will at no distant period rank amongst the proudest pictures of
England--and England against the world!--thy master, my brother, thy, at
present, all too little considered master--Crome.

CHAPTER XXII.

Desire for Novelty--Lives of the Lawless--Countenances--Old Yeoman and
Dame--We Live near the Sea--Uncouth-looking Volume--The Other
Condition--Draoitheac--A Dilemma--The Antinomian--Lodowick
Muggleton--Almost Blind--Anders Vedel.

But to proceed with my own story; I now ceased all at once to take much
pleasure in the pursuits which formerly interested me, I yawned over Ab
Gwilym; even as I now in my mind's eye perceive the reader yawning over
the present pages. What was the cause of this? Constitutional
lassitude, or a desire for novelty? Both it is probable had some
influence in the matter, but I rather think that the latter feeling was
predominant. The parting words of my brother had sunk into my mind. He
had talked of travelling in strange regions and seeing strange and
wonderful objects, and my imagination fell to work and drew pictures of
adventures wild and fantastic, and I thought what a fine thing it must be
to travel, and I wished that my father would give me his blessing, and
the same sum that he had given my brother, and bid me go forth into the
world; always forgetting that I had neither talents nor energies at this
period which would enable me to make any successful figure on its stage.

And then I again sought up the book which had so captivated me in my
infancy, and I read it through; and I sought up others of a similar
character, and in seeking for them I met books also of adventure, but by
no means of a harmless description, lives of wicked and lawless men,
Murray and Latroon--books of singular power, but of coarse and prurient
imagination--books at one time highly in vogue; now deservedly forgotten,
and most difficult to be found.

And when I had gone through these books, what was my state of mind? I
had derived entertainment from their perusal, but they left me more
listless and unsettled than before, and I really knew not what to do to
pass my time. My philological studies had become distasteful, and I had
never taken any pleasure in the duties of my profession. I sat behind my
desk in a state of t