hold he was always accounted a strange and
unsocial boy. In his childhood he kept aloof
from all pastime and play, and while his
companions resorted to their youthful amusements
and sports, Daniel was usually seen alone, with
a book or a slate, whereon he worked, at a very
early age, the axioms of algebra or the diagrams
of Euclid. He had mastered with marvellous
rapidity all the books of the countryside,
and he had even exhausted the instructions
of the schoolmaster of the neighbouring town.
Then it became his chosen delight to wander on
the moors with some favourite volume in his
hand, and a crust from his mother's loaf in his
bag; with his inseparable tools, also, the chisel
and the mallet, wherewithal to chip and gather
the geological specimens of his own district.
Often he would be absent whole nights, and
when he was questioned as to his place of
shelter, he would reply, "Where John the
Baptist slept," or "At Roche, in the hermit's
bed;" for the ruined cell of a Christian
anchorite stood, and yet stands, above the scenery
of the wanderings of that solitary boy. But
Daniel's principal ambition was to know and
name the planets and the stars. It was at the
time when the discoveries of foreign astronomers
had peopled the heavens with fresh
imagery, and our own Newton had given to the
ethereal phenomena of the sky a "local
habitation and a name." It is very striking to
discover, when the minds of any nation are flooded
with new ideas and original trains of thought,
how soon the strange tidings will reach the
very skirts of the population, and borne, how
we know not, will thrill the hamlet and the
village with the wonders that have roused and
instructed the far-off and civilised city. Thus
even Daniel's distant district became aware of
the novel science of the stars, and this intelligence
failed not to excite and foster the faculties
of his original mind. Local legends still record
and identify the tall and craggy places where
the youthful " scholar " was wont to ascend and
to rest all night, with his face turned upward
to the sky, "learning the customs of the stars,"
and "finding out by the planets things to come."
Nor were his studies unassisted and alone. A
master-mind of those days, Cookworthy of
Plymouth, a learned and scientific man, still
famous in the west, found out and fostered the
genius of the intelligent youth. He gave him
access to his library, and allowed him to visit
his orrery and other scientific instruments: and
the result of this kindness was shown in the
tastes and future peculiarities of the mind of
Gumb. The stern necessities of life demanded,
in the course of time, that Daniel should fulfil
the destiny of his birth, and win his bread by
the sweat of his brow; for the meagre resources
of his cottage-home had to be augmented by his
youthful labour. In the choice of an occupation
his early habits were not without their
influence. He selected the craft of a hewer of
stone, a very common calling on the surrounding
moors; and there he toiled for several
years of his succeeding life, amid the Cyclopean
models of the early ages. The pillared rocks
of that wild domain were the monoliths of
Celtic history, and the vast piles of the native
moor were the heaped and unhewn pyramids of
an ancient and unknown people. All these
surrounding scenes acted on his tastes and
impulses. "So the foundations of his mind were
laid!" His father died, and Daniel became his
own master, and had to hew his way through
the rugged world, by what the Cornish call
"the pith of his bones." That he did so his
future history will attest; but it was not
unsoothed nor alone; nor was it without the usual
incident of human existence. No man ever yet
became happily great, or joyfully distinguished,
without that kindling strength, the affectionate
presence of a woman.

                   He whom Joy would win,
Must share it; Happiness was born a twin.

Such was the solace that arrived to soothe
the dreary path of Daniel Gumb. He wooed
and won a maiden of his native village, who,
amid the rugged rocks and appellatives of
Cornwall, had the soft Italian name of Florence.
But where, amid the utter poverty of his
position and prospects, could he find the peaceful
and happy wedding-roof that should bend over
him and his bride? His friends were few, and
they too poor and lowly to aid his start in life.
He himself had inherited nothing, save a strong
head and heart, and two stalwart hands. He
looked around him and afar off, and there was
no avenue for house or home. Suddenly he
recalled to mind his wandering days and his
houseless nights, the scanty food, the absorbing
meditation, and the kindly shelter of many a
nook in the hollow places of the granite rock.
He formed his plan, and made it known to his
future and faithful bride. She assented with
the full-hearted strength and trusting sacrifice
of a woman's love. Then he went forth in the
might of his simple and strong resolve; his
tools in his scrip, and a loaf or two of his
accustomed household bread. He sought the
well-known slope under Carradon, searched
many a mass of Druid rock, and paced around
cromlech and pillared stone of old memorial,
until he discovered a primeval assemblage of
granite slabs suited to his toil. One of these,
grounded upon several others, the vast boulders
of some diluvian flood, had the rude semblance
of a roof. Underneath this shelving rock he
scooped away the soil, finding, as he dug on,
more than one upright slice of moorstone,
which he left to stand as an inner and natural
wall. At last, at the end of a few laborious
days, Daniel stood before a large cavern of the
rocks, divided into chambers by upstanding
granite, and sheltered, at a steep angle, by a
mountainous mass of stone. Nerved and
sustained by the hopeful visions which crowded on
his mind, and of which he firmly trusted that
this place would be the future scene, he toiled
on, until he had finally framed a giant abode,
such as that wherein the Cyclops shut in
Ulysses and his companions, and promised to