vanquished.

From the books which I found in his house, I likewise early acquired
a religious propensity, which was encouraged by my aunt with all her
power, and seconded by my mother. Their education, and the dogmas they
had heard from the rector, had given them very high notions of the
dignity of the clerical character; in the superior presence of which,
temporal things, laymen, and civil magistracy itself, sunk into
insignificance. The perusal of Fox's Book of Martyrs, of which I was
so fond that I would sit with my aunt for hours, before I was eight
years old, and read it to her, aided their efforts: and this childhood
bias, as will be seen, greatly influenced my first pursuits in life.
We are all the creatures of the necessities under which we exist. The
history of man is but the history of these necessities, and of the
impulse, emotion, or mind, by them begotten. Of the incidents of my
childhood, that which made the deepest impression upon me I am now
going to relate.

The daring Hugh, my father, who feared no colours, had long been
accustomed, whenever he could find time, and often indeed when he
could not, to follow the fox hounds, and hunt with his landlord, the
Squire himself. Among his other bargains, he had lately bought one of
the Squire's brood mares, Bay Meg, that had been sold because she had
twice cast her foal. On the eve of my ninth returning birth-day, being
in a gay humour (he was seldom sad) he said to me, 'I shall go out
to-morrow morning with Squire Mowbray's hounds, Hugh; will you get
up and go with me?' My heart bounded at the proposal. 'Yes,' said I.
'Lord, husband,' exclaimed my mother, 'would you break the child's
neck?' 'There is no fear,' retorted I. 'Well said, Hugh', continued my
father; 'you shall ride Bay Meg; you are but a feather, she will carry