and out of school, in doors as well as out of doors-boys who were gods among us at Eton, but who, in these our later years, have been outstripped in the race by those who passed through their school life unnoticed, almost unknown. And if this be the case with school-boys, it is sometimes equally so with those who have never been to school. A boy who has never undergone the discipline of a public school life starts at this disadvantage, that he has had little opportunity of trying his strength, either mentally, morally, or physically, with those of his own age. There is something more than a competition of wits in a schoolthere is a competition of character; and a boy brought up at home instead of starting early in life in this competition starts late. The difficulties he has to overcome are proportionate to the strength or weakness of home influences, and it says something for Reynell Taylor's bringing up, that, though he was launched into the world direct from home, he rapidly asserted himself, and in time acquired an influence among those about him which was not surpassed by that of any of his distinguished contemporaries in the same field.

Reynell Taylor possessed many marked characteristics even as a boy, and these grew to fairer and broader proportions as he increased in years. Earnestness and utter fearlessness were always a part of him, but he was endowed also with two ready passports to popularity-good looks and genial manners. He evinced a spirit of fearlessness at an early age, and it is related of him that one day, when he was only nine years old, he was sent into London on his pony to execute some commissions for his father. On his way he fell in with a noisy crowd of roughs who were

hissing and hooting the Duke of Wellington as he rode through Hyde Park. The boy pushed his pony through the crowd as best as he could, and on his return home related his adventure to his father. And what did you do?' he was asked. 'What did I do?-why took my hat off to the Duke, of course,' was the little fellow's reply.

Of the life of the family in St. John's Wood I have the following account :

'Well can I recollect Reynell at this time,' writes Mrs. Fortescue. He and my brother Fitz were always companions-my eldest brother having gone to India, and my second, Arthur, being in the artillery, so only at home from time to time. Our childhood was very happy; the brothers Fitz and Reynell amused themselves fishing in the Regent's Canal, and we all thought the fish they caught delicious. They always had some scheme on hand. An old gentleman, who lived near, encouraged them in butterfly catching, and they pursued that amusement for some time. Much money was expended in buying birds in Lisson Grove, for which we all subscribed, though after a day or two we always let them fly away.

'During this time my father, in spite of his many duties, always superintended the education of these two boys, and he must have done it well, as one passed through Oxford with credit, and Reynell through his career without having had any experience of school life.

'Of course I can remember many squabbles and fights amongst us all, but they were soon made up, and my elder sister Annie (Lady Carew) was generally the peacemaker, though she took a certain tone of authority, at which we necessarily sometimes rebelled.'

When Reynell Taylor was a boy of ten years of age his father's appointment at the Riding Establishment came to an end, and in September 1832 the whole family moved to Ogwell, where Pierce Joseph Taylor, their grandfather, had just died.

A change now came over the lives of the children, and one which their high spirits and happy dispositions enabled them to enjoy to the full. From the waste of houses, and the dull uniformity of a town, they were transported to a county where man has had to do but little, where Nature has done all. From town children they became country children, surrounded by hills and dales, by woods and flowers. The rolling moorlands of Devonshire had suddenly taken the place of the bricks and flags of St. John's Wood, and instead of the Regent's Canal there were rich meadows watered by clear streams. What wonder, then, that Ogwell days had a distinct influence on their after lives, and that Reynell Taylor grew up with an earnest love of home, which came in time to be a passion rooted deep down in his heart. Many, many years afterwards, when Ogwell had passed altogether from his family, Reynell Taylor still carried this love about with him, and sought to see in landscapes in far-off countries Haytors, and Haldons, and the outlines of the woods and hills he loved so well. Endless indeed were the amusements which the younger members of the family found ready to their hands at Ogwell. Cricket and archery, bird-nesting, butterfly-catching, sport of all kinds; a day with the hounds in winter, or long gallops over moorlands in the hot summer sun—all were enjoyed to the full and with the zest which is a part of childhood.

Reynell was the ringleader; his sisters looked up to him as a hero. Lessons over in the schoolroom, Reynell was found, and away the party started on some fresh freak. All sorts of plans were devised for trapping vermin, and a regular campaign was instituted against young birds. Owls, jays, and magpies were taken from their nests, and woodpeckers, watched to their holes in the trees, were then caught, as they flew out, in a gauze bag at the end of a long pole, which one held carefully over the hole while another tapped the tree with a stick. Thus in time Reynell's room was turned into a sort of menagerie, and families of birds of all kinds found a home there.

The children regarded it as a special dispensation in their favour that the governess was a bad walker, and hence, free from all control, they ranged the park and country round at will. At one time the pound was visited, where cider was bottled, and the bottles then buried in some secret corner of the garden; then the party would adjourn for a game of cricket; but, tired of this, some fresh amusement was thought of, and away they would go to the stream, or, better still, the pond, which Reynell would navigate in a barrel amidst the peals of laughter of those on the bank.

It may be conceived that, under these circumstances, education was carried on in a somewhat desultory manner, but at one time a tutor from Newton assisted the father with the boys.

'Except,' writes Lady Willoughby de Broke,' when we were at our lessons, Reynell was our inseparable companion. When he learnt his lessons I know not, for I am afraid there was no regular time for them, but I believe he

always had some work ready for my father when he could attend to him.

'I often wonder what the strict disciplinarian of the present day would think of the desultory way in which our readings with my father were carried on. One day, perhaps in the middle of our French or English history, Reynell would call out, “Oh, stop a minute; I must just shoot that stoat on the lawn; don't you see it?' The gun was fetched forthwith, and the stoat shot dead. I don't think he could have been more than twelve or thirteen at this time.

'Before he had a gun of his own he got hold of an old barrel of one, for which he made hard bullets of baked mud, which he used to blow through it. With this he used to kill small birds, which were afterwards made into excellent puddings for the rest of us.

'My brothers were trusted with guns at a very early age on the condition that they should never go out together unless some grown person was with them, and their word and obedience were always depended on for any simple

order or direction.

'My brother Reynell was from the first a very good shot, and also a very good rider and swimmer.

'Nothing could have exceeded the happiness of our lives at Ogwell. I feel it was not only the foundation of my brother's intense love of country life and home, but the life itself was also the foundation of his self-reliance and power of doing what he was called upon to do in after life without any thought of self.'

If one thing more than another added to the children's happiness it was the keen interest taken by their father in