TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Incidents in the Early Life of Thomas Holcroft... Thomas Holcroft The Story of Sinbad the Sailor, Arabian Nights....Jonathan Scott hild of seven years old, my friends, on a ocket with coppers. I went directly to a old toys for children, and being charmed a whistle, that I met by the way in the oy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my then came home, and went whistling all ch pleased with my whistle, but disturbing y brothers, and sisters and cousins, underin I had made, told me I had given four it as it was worth; put me in mind what at have bought with the rest of the money; e so much for my folly, that I cried with reflection gave me more chagrin than the as afterwards of use to me, the impression mind; so that often, when I was tempted essary thing, I said to myself, Don't give too e; and I saved my money. INCIDENTS IN THE EARLY LIFE OF THOMAS HOLCROFT. From the "MEMOIRS OF THOMAS HOLCROFT." I was born in London, in Orange Court, Leicester Fields, on the 10th day of December, 1745, old style. Most persons, I believe, retain through life a few strong impressions of very early childhood. I have a recollection of being played with by my parents, when very young, and of the extreme pleasure it gave me. On another occasion, as I and one or two of my brothers or sisters were playing in the court, and kneeling and peeping down a cellar window, where there were some fowls, a shutter that belonged to the window, and was fastened up, by some means or other got loose, and entirely cut off one side of my sister Anne's thumb; a disaster never afterwards to be forgotten. My father one day whipped me very severely for crying to go to a school in the neighborhood, where children were sent rather to keep them out of the way, than to learn anything. He afterwards ordered an apprentice he had to take me to school. This apprentice was an exceedingly hard-featured youth, with thick lips, wide mouth, broad nose, and his face very much marked with the small-pox, but very kind and good-tempered. I perfectly remember his carrying me in my petticoats, consoling me as we went, and giving me something nice to eat. Perhaps I bear his features in mind the more accurately, because I occasionally saw him afterwards, till I was seven or eight years old, when he used to visit my father, who was then under misfortunes. He seldom came without something kind to say, or good to give: but his last and capital gift, too precious to be ever forgotten, consisted of two small books. One was the History of Parismus and Parismenes, and the other of the Seven Champions of Chris. tendom. These were to me an inestimable treasure, that often brought the rugged, good-natured Dick to my remembrance, with no slight sense of obligation. . I must have been about five years old, when my father put me under the tuition of a player on the violin, who was a public performer of some repute. Either parental fondness led my father to believe, or he was flattered into the supposition, that I had an uncommon aptitude for the art I had been put to learn. I shall never forget the high praises I received, the affirmation that I was a prodigy, and the assurances my teacher gave that I should soon be heard in public. These dreams were never realized. . . ... When I was about six years old, the scene suddenly changed. The house-keeping broke up, the horses were sold, and we went into Berkshire, somewhat beyond Ascot Heath, about thirty miles from London. The house where we lived was situated at the corner of the road, the last of a small green, or common, down which the road had a descent. For I remember my father at first had a tall, high-boned hack, on the bare back of which I used, by his order, to gallop down the hill, though I felt great difficulty in keeping my seat. It was in this retired. spot that my father himself began to teach me to read. The task at first I found difficult, till the idea one day suddenly seized me of catching all the sounds I had been taught from the arrangement of the letters; and my joy at this amazing discovery was so great, that the recollection of it has never been effaced. After that, my progress was so rapid, that it astonished my father. He boasted of me to everybody; and that I might lose no time, the task he set me was eleven chapters a day in the Old Testament. I might indeed have deceived my father by skipping some of the chapters, but a dawning regard for truth, aided by the love I had of reading, and the wonderful histories I sometimes found in the Sacred |