Great men and famous women : a series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in history Volume 7 . generally in silent tears, butsometimes in cries contrnued for many hours. By many an expedient of a par-ent who understood him not, from frequent serious affectionate remonstrance toan occasional blow upon his face, he was led or forced along. One day this par-ent while about to destroy an old manuscript in French, noticed the child look-ing with intense interest at the illuminated letters upon its pages. Withholdingthe paper from its threatened
Great men and famous women : a series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in history Volume 7 . generally in silent tears, butsometimes in cries contrnued for many hours. By many an expedient of a par-ent who understood him not, from frequent serious affectionate remonstrance toan occasional blow upon his face, he was led or forced along. One day this par-ent while about to destroy an old manuscript in French, noticed the child look-ing with intense interest at the illuminated letters upon its pages. Withholdingthe paper from its threatened destruction she briefly succeeded in teaching himtherefrom the alphabet, and in time from a black-letter Bible he learned to long afterward the family removed to a house near the Church of St. MaryRedcliffe one of the oldest and noblest among the parochial structures in Eng-land In a room called the Treasury House, over one of the porches of thischurch was a pile of ancient documents, muniments of title, parish registers,and other things, which had been removed by the latest Chatterton, and whicn ? Copyright, 1894. by Selmar 108 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS were kept in the house now occupied by the family. The boy when eightyears old was sent to the Blue Coat, a charity school, where he learned with ra-pidity the elements taught thereat. The time not occupied with school taskshe devoted to reading whatever books he could borrow or obtain from a cir-culating library. While engaged in study he seemed unaware of everything pass-mg around him. At twelve years of age he probably had read a larger numberof books than any child who ever lived. It is curious to study how the genius of some persons is developed and theirdestiny determined by the conditions of their childhood. The Chattertons for ahundred and fifty years had been sextons in St. Mary Redcliffe, the last beingJohn, uncle of the poet. Whatever might have been in the transmission throughseveral generations of ghostl
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbiography, bookyear18
