'
"We then chose who should be chief men in our islands. Branwell chose
John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr.
Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir
Henry Halford. I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons,
Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy. Here our conversation
was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking
seven, and we were summoned off to bed. The next day we added many
others to our list of men, till we got almost all the chief men of the
kingdom. After this, for a long time, nothing worth noticing
occurred. In June, 1828, we erected a school on a fictitious island,
which was to contain 1,000 children. The manner of the building was
as follows. The Island was fifty miles in circumference, and
certainly appeared more like the work of enchantment than anything
real," &c.
Two or three things strike me much in this fragment; one is the graphic
vividness with which the time of the year, the hour of the evening, the
feeling of cold and darkness outside, the sound of the night-winds
sweeping over the desolate snow-covered moors, coming nearer and nearer,
and at last shaking the very door of the room where they were sitting--for
it opened out directly on that bleak, wide expanse--is contrasted with
the glow, and busy brightness of the cheerful kitchen where these
remarkable children are grouped.
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