His father had a small business as a dyer in Islington, and the boy, leaving school at fourteen, was sent to become a copying-clerk in a solicitor's office; his tastes were so strongly intellectual that it seemed a pity to put him to work he hated, and the clerkship was the best opening that could be procured for him.

Two years after, Mr.Scawthorne died; his wife tried to keep on the business, but soon failed, and thenceforth her son had to support her as well as himself.

From sixteen to three-and-twenty was the period of young Scawthorne's life which assured his future advancement--and his moral ruin.

A grave, gentle, somewhat effeminate boy, with a great love of books and a wonderful power of application to study, he suffered so much during those years of early maturity, that, as in almost all such eases, his nature was corrupted.

Pity that some self-made intellectual man of our time has not flung in the world's teeth a truthful autobiography.