the Tories. The first great
dinner at which I had the honour of being present, and to which I was
taken by my father, who was a great friend of Mr. Childs, was on the
occasion of the presentation to the latter of a testimonial by a
deputation of distinguished Dissenters from Ipswich in connection with
his incarceration in the county gaol at Ipswich, for having refused to
pay rates for the support of a Church in which he did not believe, and
for the performance of a service in which he took no part. At that time
'the dear old Church of England,' while it was compelled to tolerate
Dissent, insisted on Dissent being taxed to the uttermost farthing; and
that it does not do so now, and that it is more popular in consequence,
is due to the firm stand taken by such men as John Childs of Bungay. He
was a great phrenologist. In his garden he had a summer-house, which he
facetiously termed his scullery, where he had some three hundred plaster
casts, many of which he had taken himself of public individuals and
friends and acquaintances. My father was honoured in this way, as also
my eldest sister. Sir Henry Thompson and I escaped that honour, but I
have not forgotten his dark, piercing glance at our heads, when, as boys,
we first came into his presence, and how I trusted that the verdict was
satisfactory. Of course the Childses went to Meeting, but when I knew
Bungay Mr. Shufflebottom had been gathered to his fathers, and the Rev.
John Blaikie, a Scotchman, and therefore always a welcome guest at
Wrentham, reigned in his stead. Mr. Childs had a large and promising
family, few of whom now remain. His daughter was an exceptionally gifted
and glorious creature, as in that early day it seemed to me. She also
died early, leaving but one son, Mr. Crisp, a partner in the well-known
legal firm of Messrs. Ashurst, Morris, and Crisp. It was in the little
box by the window of the London Coffee House--now, alas! no more--where
Mr. Childs, on the occasion of his frequent visits to London, always
gathered around him his friends, that I first made the acquaintance of
Mr. Ashurst, the head of the firm--a self-made man, like Mr. Childs, of
wonderful acuteness and great public spirit. In religion Mr. Ashurst was
far more advanced than the Bungay printer. 'It is not a thing to reason
about,' said the latter; and so to the last he remained orthodox,
attended the Bungay Meeting-house, invited the divines of that order to
his house, put in