had friends who received him into their house, and he immediately cast about for the means of subsistence. He had brought a small sum of money with him, and this, with some borrowed capital, he immediately invested in a wholesale and retail chemist's and druggist's establishment, having been in that business before he settled in Devonshire. I was then in my tenth year, and commenced studying for the medical profession. I took to the shop wonderfully, and watched my father's right-hand man, old Mr. Kerford, compounding drugs and making up prescriptions with great interest. We lived in a populous neighbourhood, that of St. Paul's Churchyard, in a large house, but my mother preferred to have the rooms empty rather than run the risk of admitting strangers into them in such terrible times; especially as only a few months had elapsed since the conspirators Tomkins and Chaloner were hanged on gibbets before their own doors, and their associate and leader, Edmund Waller, the poet, condemned to death, but, on his almost frantic submission, let off with a fine of ten thousand pounds
'Our household was composed of ten persons—father and mother, Agnes and myself, Mr. Kerford and three assistants in the shop, and two elderly female servants. We had a clerk in the wholesale warehouse, and porters who did not reside in the house. It was a large business, and to make it likely to succeed, my father had gone considerably into debt. He had every hope and prospect of succeeding, displayed great energy and talent, and was delighted to see me taking a kindly interest in it. Indeed, I had determined to second his efforts with all my heart; but I was very young, and soft and malleable for good or evil as a piece of dough. His principal creditor was an old friend named Reginald, whose eldest son, Banwell, became an apprentice to our business—a handsome, if not
