ng a man, his gun, and dog over the shallows of Braydon, in pursuit
of the flights of wild-fowl which at certain seasons haunt these shoals.
When the boat is thus loaded, it only draws two or three inches of water,
and is quite unfit for sea. Young Astley nearly lost his life in
attempting to take one of these boats out to open sea. In this way young
Astley Cooper, from his fearless and enterprising disposition, soon
became a sort of leader of the Yarmouth boys, and at their head, for a
time, seems to have devoted himself to every kind of amusement within his
reach--riding, boating, fishing, and not unfrequently sports of a less
harmless character, such as breaking lamps and windows, ringing the
church bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations
of the church clock, so that if any mischief were committed it was sure,
says his admiring biographer, to be set down to him.

The two men who shed most literary fame on the Yarmouth of my childhood
were Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney, who in this respect resembled each
other, that they were both bankers and both antiquarians more or less
distinguished. Dawson Turner was a man of middle height and of saturnine
aspect, who had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster to the ladies
of his family, who were quite as intelligent and devoted to literature as
himself. He published a 'Tour in Normandy'--at that time scarcely anyone
travelled abroad--and much other matter, and perhaps as an
autograph-collector was unrivalled. Most of his books, with his notes,
more or less valuable, are now in the British Museum. Sir Charles Lyell,
when a young man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very
high idea of them all. 'Mr. Turner,' he says, in a letter to his father,
'surprises me as much as ever. He wrote twenty-two letters last night
after he had wished us "Good-night." It kept him up till two o'clock
this morning.' Again Sir Charles writes: 'What I see going on every hour
in this family makes me ashamed of the most active day I ever spent at
Midhurst. Mrs. Turner has been etching with her daughters in the parlour
every morning at half-past six.' Of Hudson Gurney in his youth we get a
flattering portrait in one of the charming 'Remains of the Late Mrs.
Trench,' edited by her son, Archbishop of Dublin. Writing from Yarmouth
in 1799, she says: 'I have been detained here since last Friday, waiting
for a fair wind, and my imprisonment would have b