Up with the ladder, and down with the rope,
And give me a penny to burn the old Pope.

In those days a few phrases coming from the
lips of the ruling few were supposed to be a
sufficient answer to the grievances of the
subject many. "The people have nothing to do
with the laws but to obey them;" "If they don't
like their country, let them leave it;" "Glorious
constitution;" "Envy and admiration of the
world;" "Don't pretend to be wiser than your
ancestors;" or, to confound all malcontents, and
crush all sedition, the terrible weight of a Latin
quotation, " Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari," was
hurled at the head of grumblers.

I owed much to R. K. He was a man of
kindly nature, somewhat slovenly except when
powdered and puffed for company. I was ever
discovering in him new proofs of intelligence (the
monomania apart) and benignity. He had been
a traveller, well acquainted with Spain, Italy,
Portugal, and France, and their languages. He
had a library rich in stores of Castilian and Tuscan
literature. He introduced me to Don Quixote
in the original, and taught me to pronounce
the jotas and the thetas of that tongue. He was
familiar with the distinctions between the
Andalusian and the court idioms; and, finding me
somewhat apt, and very grateful, took much
trouble to solve my difficulties, and encourage
my inquiries. In some of his oddities, he
resembled the hero of La Mancha; and he
had an old gardener—the father of Dowton
the comedian—who might have passed for a
Devonian Sancho Panza. Great controversies
were carried on as to horticultural management,
when the master, in very ancient and very loose
slippers, in his flowing matinal garments,
pointed out certain things to be done, which
the vicegerent thought was an interference with
the government of his own Barataria. Sometimes
I was asked to dinner, and foreign luxuries
were brought on the table—Spanish olives (they
are larger and richer than the French); Chinese
ginger (it is sweeter than the West Indian);
and there was talk of pucheros and olla podridas,
and fascinating descriptions of Mantillas and
Basquiñas, and the bright-eyed, small-footed
maidens of the Peninsula. I imbibed a love of
travel, which I was afterwards able to indulge;
and so well was I taught by my kind patron, that,
when launched on the Peninsula during the
great war, I was so much at home that I
obtained the name of El Español Ingles. So easily
are languages learnt, if properly taught. His
brother was a stiff and solemn gentleman, who
had a termagant wife. I was once sent to the
lady with a request from her husband that she
would let him have the newspaper, if she had
done with it. I had innocently knocked at the
front door, and was conducted to the drawing-
room. "Was it you who had the impertinence to
knock at the front door? The proper way for boys
is through the servants' passage. What do you
want?" I answered very humbly, "Mr. K. will be
obliged to you, ma'am, for the newspaper, if you
have read it." "Oh, oh! he wants the newspaper,
does he?" shouted the irate lady—"wants
the newspaper, does he? Then he shan't have it."
Upon which she flung the newspaper upon
the sofa, and seated herself upon it, with all the
dignity of a conqueror. I took the message to
the master, (?) who received it in meek
quiescence. Yet he was an able man, was thought
a superior writer, and whenever "the house"
required any very important letter to be forwarded,
was the chosen scribe. There was another
merchant, J. C., who was of obscure peasant
origin, born in the locality which George Bidder
has since illustrated, but who owed his
good fortune (for he became afterwards a partner
with one of the Barings) entirely to the
excellence of his commercial epistles. The
ordinary state of mercantile correspondence was
dull and common-place, such as may now be
seen in the Complete Letter-writers of the time.
The youth took to the study of Junius as a
model; and, as everybody is really pleased with
what is graceful and emphatic, his advancement
followed as a matter of course. J. M., an
energetic and ambitious man, endeavoured to.
associate imports from Russia and the north,
with exports of woollens to the south; but his
sagacity took him to a wider field. His descendants
still retain possession of the local banking
field, which the Barings, in their bolder and
higher flight, abandoned long ago.

While R. K. was learned in the languages of
the south, S. C. was equally master of those of
the north, and most willing to aid the youths
who were studying German and Dutch. The
merchants were rather proud of their linguistic
acquirements, and sought opportunities of
showing how much they were at home when
abroad, and abroad when at home. Languages
are learnt easily by the instrumentality of the
tongue, and, where neither bad grammar nor
false pronunciation has ever been heard, a
learner is not likely to fall into mistakes,
any more than a child when taught its mother
tongue correctly. S. C. was a Quaker, but
represented the transition period, when the Quaker
just began to accommodate himself to the fashions
of the world, and when the ancient How art thee?
and How do thee do? were replaced by
improved syntax. The Quaker women were stiffer
than the men, but when the change came over
them, the passage from the grey and the grave
to the gay and the gaudy, from the staid and
sober to the brighter and the lighter colours, was
more striking.

While the old staple trade was taking its
flight from Devonshire, other manufactures,
driven by the outrages of the Luddites and
other secret combinations from central England,
were established in the neighbourhood of Exeter.
They found cheap and abundant water power,
wages low, labour abundant, and, above all,
peace and security against those interruptions
which ignorance and violence directed against
the mechanical improvements that diminished
the cost and perfected the products of industry.
The sagacity of John Heathcoat transferred to