PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

ASIDE from the great thoroughfares, and yet not far from London; large enough to be self-contained, and withal conscious of no bustle; its spacious streets and tidy shops announcing industrious comfort, and its belt of villas suggestive of refined society; its margin laved by the winding Nen, and its ample meadows fragrant with cowslips and milch kine; that shadowy interest hovering over it in which historic minds invest the scene of old parliaments and sieges, whilst meeting-houses, reading-rooms, and railway-stations flare beside mediæval fanes in confidential proximity; like a British oak from a Saxon acorn, still growthful and green at heart, NORTHAMPTON is one of those towns of good constitution, which combine the freshness of youth with the sedateness of antiquity. And as first we hailed it, standing up with its towers and steeples, an architectural islet in a verdurous sea, we felt that even England could not offer a more tempting retreat to a student somewhat social. Sequestered enough to promise leisure, and withal sufficiently populous to supply incentives to ministerial exertion; had we been a pastor in search of a people, like St Catherine at Ledbury, we should have heard an opportune chime in its evening air tinkling, and telling us, "Here take up thy rest."

To English Nonconformity Northampton should be a sort of Mecca. Three hundred years ago, it gave birth to Robert Brown, the father of English Congregationalism; and within the last generations, Northampton and its neighbourhood have been a chief stronghold of the English Baptists. It was here that the Rylands ministered: the elder, in his orthodox vehemence a Boanerges, in his tender feelings a "beloved disciple:"

the younger famous for his microscopic eyes, and who ought to have been famous for his telescopic heart; for, in their sympathies and solicitudes, few have ever ranged over a wider field, or looked with a nobler regard on the things of others. It was in the adjacent Kettering that Andrew Fuller laboured for thirty years, composing those volumes which have gone so far to give the right tone and attempering to modern Calvinism; a deep digger in the Bible mine, and whose rich, though roughshapen ingots, supply to the present day the mint of many a sermoniser; himself too homely to be a popular preacher, and too unambitious to regret it; amidst all his bluntness one of the purest of philanthropists, and, in the absence of every courtly attribute, by dint of his supreme sagacity, the mainspring of each denominational movement. In Northampton and its surrounding villages, at the same period, a humble. shoemaker used to ply his craft; and, leaving at home his broken-hearted wife, or perhaps a sickly child, poor cobbler Carey would hawk from door to door his ill-paid handiwork; on rainy days revolving that Eastern mission of which he was soon to be the father and founder; or, if the weather permitted, conning some outlandish grammar, and acquiring those elements of polyglottal power which shortly developed in the Briareus. of Oriental translation. But our own pilgrimage to Northamp ton was mainly impelled by veneration for another worthy. We went to see the spot ennobled by the most attractive name in last century's Dissenting ministry. We went to see the house where "The Rise and Progress" was written. We visited the old chapel, with its square windows and sombre walls, where so many fervent exhortations were once poured forth, and so much enduring good was accomplished. We entered the pulpit where Doddridge used to preach, and the pew where Colonel Gardiner worshipped. We sat in the old arm-chair, beside the vestry fire, and flanking the little table on which so many pages of that affecting Diary were written. And with a view of a sup

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posed original likeness in the study of our host-a minister of the same school, and of a kindred spirit with Doddridge-we finished our Northampton pilgrimage.

In the ornithological gallery of the British Museum, and near the celebrated remains of the Dodo, is suspended the portrait of an extinct lawyer, Sir John Doderidge, the first of the name who procured any distinction to his old Devonian family. Persons skilful in physiognomy have detected a resemblance betwixt King James's solicitor-general and his only famous namesake. But, although it is difficult to identify the sphery figure of the judge with the slim consumptive preacher, and still more difficult to surround with a saintly halo the convivial countenance in which official gravity and constitutional gruffness have only yielded to good cheer; yet, it would appear that for some of his mental features, the divine was indebted to his learned ancestor. Sir John was a bookworm and a scholar; and for a great period of his life a man of mighty industry. His ruling passion went with him to the grave; for he chose to be buried in Exeter Cathedral, at the threshold of its library. His nephew was the rector of Shepperton in Middlesex; but at the Restoration, as he kept a conscience, he lost his living. In the troubles of the Civil War, the judge's estate of two thousand a-year had also been lost out of the family, and the ejected minister was glad to rear his son as a London apprentice, and young Daniel had to push his own way as an oilman. A few years before Mr Doddridge resigned the living of Shepperton, there had come over to England a Bohemian refugee, John Baumann. When the persecution against the Protestants arose in his native land, this godly pastor fled from Prague, taking with him his German Bible, and a hundred gold pieces stitched into a leather girdle. Sleeping in a country inn on one of the first nights of his flight, the fugitive forgot the girdle, and did not miss it till he reached his next resting

place. It was a weary tramp to retrace his steps to his former lodging; but there the bar-maid told him that she had found an old belt, and from its worn appearance had thought it useless, and thrown it away into one of those domestic limbos-a closet under the stair-where worn besoms and broken stools await the next removal. It was soon produced, and restored to the joyful traveller. With the remainder of his gold pieces, and with his Luther's Bible, Pastor Baumann at last reached England, and when, many years after, he died, the teacher of a school at Kingston-upon-Thames, he left an only daughter. In the providence of God, the son of the ejected Nonconformist, and the daughter of the German refugee, became acquainted. Perhaps the similarity of their descent might help to interest them in one another. But, sure enough, they fell in love, and the London shopkeeper espoused the orphan daughter of the Kingston schoolmaster. Their income was never great, and in nest-building visions they sometimes fancied how pleasant it would be if they could only recover some of Sir John's Devonshire acres. But the salutary dread of a law-suit checked the vain ambition, and sent Daniel back to his casks and his cans, and his wife to her humble housekeeping. And for all their toils the Sabbath made them sweet amends. They had a sorer trial. Except one sickly girl they had lost all their children; and that little girl was the only survivor of nineteen. At last, on a midsummer's day,* and in an airless chamber of some stifled London street, Mrs Doddridge gave birth to her twentieth child. In their solicitude for the half-dead mother, no one paid much attention to the tiny and lifeless-looking infant. Encouraged, however, by some symptom of animation, a neighbour took in hand the little castaway, and, by dint of tender nursing, saved to the world what it had so nearly lost, the life of PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

A child so fragile, and given to them in circumstances so

* June 26, 1702.

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affecting, was exceedingly endeared to his parents; and, as usually happens with delicate children, his finely strung sensibilities, and his yearning affection, rendered him peculiarly susceptible of maternal influence. His first lessons were out of a Pictorial Bible, which was then occasionally found in the old houses of England and Holland. The chimney of the room where he and his mother usually sate, was adorned with a series of Dutch tiles, representing the chief events of Scriptural story. In bright blue, on a ground of glistering white, were represented the serpent in the tree, Adam delving outside the gate of Paradise, Noah building his great ship, Elisha's bears devouring the naughty children, and all the outstanding incidents of Holy Writ. And when the frost made the fire burn clear, and little Philip was snug in the arm-chair beside his mother, it was endless joy to hear the stories that lurked in the painted porcelain. That mother could not foresee the outgoings of her early lesson; but when the little boy had become a famous divine, and was publishing his "Family Expositor," he could not forget the Nursery Bible in the chimney tiles. At ten years of age he was sent to the school at Kingston which his grandfather Baumann had taught long ago; and here his sweet dispositions and alacrity for learning drew much love. around him-a love which he soon inspired in the school at St Alban's, whither his father subsequently removed him. But whilst busy there with his Greek and Latin, his heart was sorely wrung by the successive tidings of the death of either parent. His father was willing to indulge a wish he had now. begun to cherish, and had left money enough to enable the young student to complete his preparations for the Christian ministry. Of this provision a self-constituted guardian got hold, and embarked it in his own sinking business. His failure soon followed, and engulphed the little fortune of his ward; and, as the hereditary plate of the thrifty householders was sold along with the bankrupt's effects, if he had ever felt