The youngest daughter, Priscilla,* herself a Poetess and writer, married the Poet Alaric A. Watts.

There was also another son, John Joyce, who died in infancy.

THE POET'S FATHER.

John Wiffen was descended from the old family of Wimpffen,† who settled in Norfolk. It is not known when this branch of the family became Friends, but the name occurs in the Quaker registers of Norwich monthly meeting, variously spelt (as Wiffen, Wifin, Wifen, Whiffen), back to 1736.

John Wiffen was an intelligent man, of great conversational powers and poetical taste. When travelling on his business journeys, he carried with him volumes of a miniature edition of the Poets, (Pope, Dryden, Akenside, Churchill, and translations of Homer and Virgil,) in saddle-bags slung across his horse, in the style of travellers of that day, when such a taste was not general, and usually restricted to the learned.

He died at the age of forty years, at Woburn, leaving his six children to the care of his widow.

THE POET'S MOTHER.

Elizabeth Wiffen (maiden name Pattison) was a

*See "Memoir of B. B. Wiffen." By S. R. Pattison, Esq. + "No doubt of German origin. There is a town called Wimpfen on the Neckar, and a family Von Wimpffen still flourishes." (Professor Boehmer in "Bibliotheca Wiffeniana.")

She was also a Friend, descendant of a Quaker family who lived at Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, whose names occur in various generations on the Friends' registers, down from Ephraim and Ann Pattison, who died in 1670.

woman of superior abilities, of devout spirit and religious mind, gifted with great industry and energy of character. Left a widow alone, with six children to bring up and educate, her spirit bravely rose to the emergency.

She transmitted to her sons the principles which regulated her own daily life-self-reliance, unswerving honesty and integrity, and practical faith in the superintending providence of the all-seeing and Almighty God.

They in their day and generation left this impress on the minds of their fellow-men!

The noblest monument that can be raised to the memory of such a woman is this: "She was the mother of good and honourable sons." *

EDUCATION.

From his earliest years, Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen evinced a predilection for poetry.

He committed to

memory, with ease, long poems, which, though exceedingly beautiful in themselves, could scarcely have been impressed on the mind of so young a child, had he not possessed intuitive perception of the melody and charm of song.

This inclination was assiduously cultivated by his father, who, himself an admiring student of the great Poets, carefully fostered in his children a similar taste. His early death, however, when his eldest

See "Memoir of B. B. Wiffen," by S. R. Pattison, Esq., for sketch of the life of Elizabeth Wiffen, by her son, B. B. Wiffen.

son was yet a child, left that taste to be developed under less favourable circumstances than the guiding influence of a father's mind.

J. H. Wiffen received the earliest rudiments of education in his native town, at Dame White's school. He also for a short time attended schools at Ampthill and at Hitchin.

Ampthill, a few miles distant from Woburn, is situated in the midst of a lovely sylvan neighbourhood: the undulating park is noted for its magnificent ancient oak trees, and Ampthill House is known to history as the residence for some years of the unfortunate Queen Catharine of Arragon.*

To this period of his childhood, the poet afterwards refers, in the lines which he wrote on the occasion of Lord Holland planting the Alameda, or walk of lime trees, at Ampthill, for the recreation of its inhabitants.

"Farewell! in childhood's careless prime

It soothed to list the hum of bees;

To pluck wild flowers and lisp wild rhyme,
Beneath thine immemorial trees,

Sweet Ampthill.”

ACKWORTH SCHOOL.

When about ten years old, he was sent to the Friends' Public School at Ackworth, near Pontefract, in Yorkshire.

"Ackworth is a neat agricultural village, situate

* Catharine of Arragon introduced the manufacture of pillow lace first into the neighbourhood of Ampthill.

about three miles from Pontefract, and closely bordering on the great Yorkshire manufactories. It is

so completely removed from any great line of road, either of the old system or the new, that but for the world-wide celebrity it has obtained in the Society of Friends, from its association with their school, it is probable that it would have slumbered in undisturbed repose, amidst the well-cultivated acres by which it is surrounded." *

The school buildings, with eighty-four acres of land adjoining, were purchased in 1777 by Dr. John Fothergill, an eminent physician of London, a man of much influence in the Society of Friends, and a few of his friends. The property was afterwards transferred to trustees appointed by the Friends' Yearly Meeting, and the institution established as a public school.

Amongst the names of its scholars who have distinguished themselves in politics, science, and literature, are those of John Bright; James Wilson, late Financial Secretary of India; William Allen Miller, Vice-President of the Royal Society, Professor of Chemistry at King's College, etc.; William Howitt, the Poet and writer; and the brothers Jeremiah and Benjamin Wiffen.

Although in the present day, Ackworth School has greatly enlarged the range of its studies, in order to meet the requirements of the age, its

* From "History of Ackworth School," by Thomas Pumphrey.

routine originally comprised only the acquirements of an English education.

The qualities of the young poet's mind and disposition, soon developed themselves in the ardour and diligence which he displayed in the pursuit of knowledge, so as to attract the favourable notice of his masters, as well as the love and admiration of his fellow-pupils. Here he acquired that style of penmanship for which his autographs are remarkable, and which rendered his letters and MSS. specimens of clear and legible writing.

Here also he commenced a practical acquaintance with the arts of etching and wood-engraving, cutting seals, and other small devices in wood.

By his skill in wood-engraving at that early age, he obtained occasional supplies of pocket-money, which he laid out in the purchase of books; and the acquisition of this art enabled him afterwards, to appreciate the merit, and to direct the execution, of the beautiful woodcuts, designed by Corbould and Hayter, which adorn the pages of his "Tasso."

There was a bookseller in the neighbouring town, whose literary stores were a great attraction to the young boy. On holidays he would walk over there, and the kind master of the shop, struck by the great interest he displayed, allowed him to look at and turn over his treasures, and aided him in the sale of his wood engravings.

On one occasion J. H. Wiffen was much taken by the title of one of the old-fashioned sensational