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lieve this assertion when I relate by what gradations I fell from the path of rectitude, and when I account for the causes which actuated me to pursue a course of dishonesty. My principal delight, when very young, was to frequent the only bookseller's shop our little town afforded, where I would stand for hours reading, or rather devouring, whatever books, or, as my dear grandfather termed it, mental food, I could lay hold of. There was also an old woman who had a circulating library, consisting of about a hundred volumes, chiefly novels, to whom I disbursed every sixpence and shilling I received for pocket money. My parents, indeed (for by this term I shall in future, for brevity's sake, call my grandfather and grandmother, as it is from them only I ever experienced parental affection; they, I say) did not wholly approve of this indiscriminate passion for reading; fearing, and indeed with reason, as I am now convinced, that I should meet with matter tending to vitiate a young mind (which has been justly compared to a sheet of white paper, open to receive and retain the first impressions), and to inculcate romantic notions of men and manners. Though I subscribe to the justice of this idea in general, yet I firmly believe it was owing to this course of reading that I very early acquired a knowledge of the world, surprising in one so young; and that when I soon after launched into the ocean of life, I was on my guard against many of
