verse with the actors who visited her house. He even caught the dramatic tone of conversation, and one Sunday on his return from church received a grave rebuke, for having observed that there had been a very full house that morning.
In his sixth year he was sent to a school at Bristol, kept by one Foot, a Baptist, who had sunk into Arianism, a vindictive and stern divine, who died after he had been there twelve months, and was succeeded by a Socinian. He was then removed to Corston, about nine miles from Bristol; this school was abruptly dissolved, and young Southey was sent to live with his grandmother at Bedminster, with whom Miss Tyler was then domesticated.
He was next placed under a Welshman named Williams, at Bristol, from whom he learnt but little, but where he spent the pleasantest of his school days. Williams, who was proud of his elocution, once asked his pupil scornfully who taught him to read. "My aunt," replied Southey. "Then give my compliments to your aunt," said the master, "and tell her that my old horse that has been dead twenty years could have taught you as well." Southey innocently delivered the message verbatim, and was astonished at the violent reception it met with. He was next placed under the superintendence of Lewis, a clergyman at Bristol, where Miss Tyler was then residing. This succession of teachers must, according to conventional notions of education, have been most injurious. An ordinary boy would have been as ignorant at the end of such a peregrination as at the beginning. But it was advantageous rather than hurtful to an inquisitive mind like Southey's. The frequent change of scene enlarged his ideas, and he had already commenced that system of unconscious self-culture, which is the principal, probably the only, effective education of superior minds. Newberry's
