is usual after-dinner pipe, previous to going out to spend
the afternoon visiting his sick and afflicted; and how such names as Earl
Grey, and Lord John Russell, and Lord Brougham--the people then called
him Harry Brougham; it was a pity that he was ever anything else--were
familiar in our mouths as household words.
In another way also there came to the children in Wrentham the growing
perception of a larger world than that in which we lived, and moved, and
had our being. One of the historic sites of East Anglia is Framlingham,
a small market town, lying a little off the highroad to London, a few
miles from what always seemed to me the very uninteresting village of
Needham Market, though at one time Godwin, the author of 'Caleb
Williams,' preached in the chapel there. There is now a public school
for Suffolk boys at Framlingham, and it may yet make a noise in the
world. Framlingham in our time has given London Mr. Jeaffreson, a
successful man of letters, and Sir Henry Thompson, a still more
successful surgeon. In my young days it was chiefly noted for its
castle. The mother of that amiable and excellent lady, Mrs. Trimmer,
also came from Framlingham; and it is to be hoped that the old town may
have had something to do with the formation of the character of a woman
whom now we should sneer at, perhaps, as goody-goody, but who, when
George the Third was King, did much for the education and improvement of
the young. I read in Mrs. Trimmer's life 'that her father was a man of
an excellent understanding, and of great piety; and so high was his
reputation for knowledge of divinity, and so exemplary his moral conduct,
that, as an exception to their general rule, which admitted no laymen, he
was chosen member of a clerical club in the town (Ipswich) in which he
resided. From him,' continues the biographer of the daughter, 'she
imbibed the purest sentiments of religion and virtue, and learnt betimes
the fundamental principles of Christianity.' Well, it is hoped Mr. Kirby
did his best for his daughter; but, after all, how much more potent is
the influence of a mother! And hence I may claim for Framlingham a fair
share in the formation of even so burning and shining a light as Mrs.
Trimmer.
The name Framlingham, say the learned, or did say--for what learned men
say at one time does not always correspond with what they say at
another--is composed of two Saxon words, signifying the habitation of
strangers; and to strange
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