erance with
very perfect clearness. His manner, I remember thinking, was unlike
any that I had ever witnessed in the pulpit, and appeared to me to
resemble rather that of a very earnest speaker at the hustings than
the usual pulpit style. His sentences seemed to run downhill, with
continually increasing speed till they came to a full stop at the
bottom. It was, I think, the only sermon I ever heard which I wished
longer. He carried me with him completely, for the century was in
those days, like me, young. But if I were to hear a similarly fervid
discourse now on the same subject, I should surely desire some clearer
setting forth of the difference between "knowledge" and "wisdom."

It was about this time, _i.e._, in the year 1839, that my mother, who
had been led, by I forget what special circumstances, to take a great
interest in the then hoped-for factory legislation, and in Lord
Shaftesbury's efforts in that direction, determined to write a novel
on the subject with the hope of doing something towards attracting the
public mind to the question, and to visit Lancashire for the purpose
of obtaining accurate information and local details.

The novel was written, published in the then newly-invented fashion of
monthly numbers, and called _Michael Armstrong_. The publisher, Mr.
Colburn, paid a long price for it, and did not complain of the result.
But it never became one of the more popular among my mother's novels,
sharing, I suppose, the fate of most novels written for some
purpose other than that of amusing their readers. Novel readers are
exceedingly quick to smell the rhubarb under the jam in the dose
offered to them, and set themselves against the undesired preachment,
as obstinately as the naughtiest little boy who ever refused to be
physicked with nastiness for his good.

My mother neglected no means of making the facts stated in her book
authentic and accurate, and the _mise en scene_ of her story graphic
and truthful. Of course I was the companion of her journey, and was
more or less useful to her in searching for and collecting facts in
some places where it would have been difficult for her to look
for them. We carried with us a number of introductions from Lord
Shaftesbury to a rather strange assortment of persons, whom his
lordship had found useful both as collectors of trustworthy
information, and energetic agitators in favour of legislation.

The following letter from the Earl of Shaftesbury, then Lord A