free; so that in domestic and social life there was enforced, as a condition of decorum, a retinue of language and deportment strongly contrasting with our modern effusiveness." He adds: "In the process of change to more genial ways, that Norwich home was in advance of the average movement rather than behind; and in few others have I found the medium better observed between

bidding high for profession of enthusiasm and quenching its reality by coldness and derision." From this we get a clear impression of a gentle hand that guided firmly, a love less marked by profuseness of endearment than by constancy of parental service.1

The religious discipline of the home was probably graver than is the wont in like households now. The traditions of Puritan ancestry had not then had time to relax their hold, as they since have done, and we can imagine the compulsory Bible-readings, the severely decorous Sabbaths. Yet, that the severity of that home was less than might be looked for at that date, the following anecdote may show. The mother, going to church one evening, left the children at home alone with direction to read the Bible in her abOn her return she asked James what he had read. His answer was 66 Isaiah." "Why, no, you cannot have. read the whole of Isaiah." "Yes, mother, I have, skipping the nonsense." Many of us whose birth was of later date took our Bible as it came, not daring to skip the nonsense or even find it. Further, in the bias of religious opinion, the family had departed widely from the Calvinistic standard of their Huguenot ancestry; indeed, they represented the liberalism of the day. Their church stood

1 See two very interesting letters by Dr. Martineau in the London Daily News, December 30, 1884, and January 8, 1885. These letters were drawn out by some reflections on his mother by Mrs. Fenwick Miller in her biography of Harriet Martineau. These reflections, as well as certain intimations in Miss Martineau's Autobiography, should for all time be discredited by his most finely tempered word.

for English Presbyterianism, the root whence English Unitarianism sprang. A cardinal principle with English Presbyterians was the requirement of no creed, adopting for their rule the maxim of Chillingworth, "To the Bible and the Bible only the Christian shall subscribe."

In the earlier years the father prospered in business; and though the family maintained no extravagant standard, their circumstances were very comfortable. There came, however, an evil day of which, for the sturdy honor and self-sacrifice it called forth, it is pleasant to tell. In 1823 France threw her armies upon Spain, which received them almost without resistance. New commercial arrangements were dictated to the advantage of France, but to the grievous loss of England. Thomas Martineau's bombazines had long gone to Spain in exchange for Spanish silks. This trade was now cut off, and, despite his bravest efforts, his business rapidly declined. At length his affairs reached such a degree of embarrassment that he could honorably keep silence no longer, and he laid them before his creditors. They found his liabilities in the neighborhood of £100,000, his assets not far from £75,000. Fifteen shillings to the pound could have been paid, and thus release secured. Fifteen shillings, however, could not pay a pound, according to Martineau standards; nor could war or any other disaster release from an obligation that any toil or sacrifice could cancel. Confident of his ability in time to pay all, his creditors suffered him to undertake the struggle. It was a long struggle, lasting beyond his life, and carried on by his family. At length the goal was won; the debt, a maelstrom that had sucked in all their family fortune, was discharged, and the family could face the world with poverty and honor. Rachel and Ellen must needs take service as governesses, and Harriet incur the hardships of her brave early career, but no indulgence was purchased with an unpaid debt.

That this achievement left a legacy of pleasant memory we may well believe; and testimony is not wanting. In the memoirs of Lord Brougham is a note which he once addressed to Lord Grey, soliciting a pension for Harriet Martineau, whom he felt to be overworked and much deserving. In it he referred, innocently enough, to her father's failure, meaning, of course, the catastrophe that swept away his fortune. On the appearance of the book Harriet wrote to the London Daily News with the intensity with which she might have repelled an insult: "My father did not fail." Dr. Martineau also, in a later writing, speaks of the "imputation" (of having failed in business) erroneously cast upon his father "in Lord Brougham's autobiography." Some years later still, speaking of this event with the present writer, he said with a satisfaction his modesty could not conceal: "There was no failure; twenty shillings to the pound were paid." If there had been failure, surely, according to the judgment of men, there had been no dishonor. The war was none of Thomas Martineau's, and he was powerless to avert its consequences; and not a few may find at the root of his conduct an exaggerated sense of honor. Here, however, is the austere ethics of such emergencies, as his son in later years proclaimed them: "Whatever be the practice of society with respect to the insolvent, surely it is a mean perversion of the natural moral sense to imagine that his temporary inability, or length of delay, can cancel one iota of his obligation: these things only serve to increase its stringency; tardy reparation being a poor substitute for punctual fidelity. I am far from denying that circumstances of special and blameless misfortune may justify him in accepting the voluntary mercy of friends willing to 'forgive him all that debt.' But whoever avails himself of mere legal release as a moral exemption, is a candidate for infamy in the eyes of all uncorrupted men. The law

necessarily interposes to put a period to the controversy between debtor and creditor, and prohibit the further struggle between the arts of the one and the cruelty of the other: but it cannot annul their moral relation. Obligation cannot, any more than God, grow old and die: till it is obeyed, it stops in the present tense, and represents the eternal now. Time can wear no duty out. Neglect may smother it out of sight: opportunity may pass and turn it from our guardian angel into our haunting fiend: but while it yet remains possible, it clings to our identity, and refuses to let us go."

Beyond the home, the surroundings, if not the best conceivable, were by no means unfavorable. Norwich was, indeed, no Athens of poets and philosophers; and neither was she a Nazareth from which no good thing was to be expected. Though a manufacturing city, it had in the early part of the century an intellectual life which was considerable, and with it the Martineaus were in touch. William Taylor lived there, and was then doing his work, which, if not great, as viewed in relation with the ages, was yet not without value to his time. To the periodicals of the day, he was a toilsome contributor on subjects of foreign literature. He was among the first to introduce German poetry to English readers. He translated the Nathan der Weise, and gave a rendering of the ballad of Ellenore which found favor in the eyes of Longfellow, and from which Sir Walter Scott derived some inspiration.2 He also wrote an Historic Survey of German Poetry, and a work on English synonyms. His style was quaint, involved, harsh,—no mortal could read him now; but the fact stands that he was read, and not without profit, then. There was also a Dr. Frank Sayers who abandoned medi

1 Sermon: Christian Doctrine of Merit, Endeavors after the Christian Life. 2 Mrs. Barbauld wrote him: "Do you know that you made Walter Scott a poet? He told me the other day. It was, he says, your ballad of Lenore that inspired him." Three Generations of English Women, Janet Ross.

cine for literature. He wrote Dramatic Sketches of Ancient Northern Mythology; he brought out a volume of poems; he was the author of a volume of Disquisitions, Metaphysical and Literary. None of these works reached the standard that insures fame, yet they served their day. There was likewise a Dr. Rigby who wrote very elaborately on subjects of medicine and agriculture; also a Dr. Alderson, who wrote on agriculture and geology; and several others whose names are recorded, and whose works the curious may still find,not stars, yet very serviceable candles. There were two others who stood in a somewhat different category: Amelia Opie, whose novels, though not great, were yet wholesome, and gained a popularity that lasted beyond her day; and Anna Lætitia Barbauld, intelligent, gentle, pure, who fell a little short of popularity and just missed of fame. The latter did not live in Norwich, but was a frequenter there, and an occasional visitor in the Martineau household. Indeed, the Norwich of Mr. Martineau's boyhood might have filled an alcove of a public library with the works of her contemporary authors.

Besides, the city was not without a record of strong men. in whose paths the growing boy must tread. There was John Taylor,1 teacher, author, and Presbyterian divine, who wrote many works of a theological character, — A Hebrew Concordance, A Scheme of Scripture Divinity, The Scripture Doctrine of the Atonement, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle to the Romans, A Free and Candid Examination of the Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin. The latter was honored with a polemic cannonade both from Edwards and John Wesley. Reaching somewhat farther back, there were Archbishop Parker, Thomas Legge,

1 Born at Lancaster, 1694. Ordained by "dissenting ministers" at Derbyshire in 1716. He moved to Norwich to become the colleague of another minister in 1733. In 1754 he laid the first stone of the famous Octagon Chapel, described by John Wesley as " perhaps the most elegant one in all Europe," and too fine for the "old coarse gospel."