CONTENTS. PAGE THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINEWRIGHT, THE POISONER, 1830 THE MURDER OF MR. WILLIAM WEARE, 1823. OLD STORIES RE-TOLD. THE LIFE OF A METHODIST PREACHER. ON a summer morning, in the year 1715, Silas and Dulcibella Told, the children of the doctor of a Guineaman, were wandering about Kingswood, hand in hand, like the pretty babes in the ballad. Their father, a speculative Bristol physician -who had ruined himself by building a wet dock at the Limekilns, Clifton, and then gone to sea as doctor to a slaver, and there died-had brought these children up in a religious way; their mother, the daughter of a Devonshire sea-captain, had also filled their minds with religious feelings, so that the two children were in the habit of spending all their time in the fields, picking wild flowers, looking for mushrooms, or sitting under the wild rose-bushes, "conversing about God and happiness," and "so transported with heavenly bliss" (we use the exact words of one of them in after life), that whether they existed in the body or out of the body they could not tell. Their talk, about God and paradise and the Promised Land, was interrupted with hunts after dragon-flies, scrambles for flowers, startled watchings at the flashing of the trout in the brooks, or the plucking of daisies for chains. Now and then the bark of a fox, or the blaring of a badger, filled them with an indescribable dread of being devoured by wild beasts. At last they ran and ran till they got among the trees and lost the path, then they sat down together, kissed each other and cried; for they would never see home again, but starve, pine, and die, and be covered over with leaves by the good robin redbreasts, like the Children in the Wood, for whom they had so often cried their little hearts out. But the little grave boy soon aroused himself to comfort his sister, and bid her trust in God; and just at that moment a large B dog appeared, sent, they had no doubt, by Heaven, which drove them, without barking, out of the wood into the real road home. In Mr. Told's own words (for the grave little boy in after life grew up into one of the Reverend Mr. Wesley's most zealous preachers, and became a noble-hearted visitor at Newgate): "When we looked round us to behold the dog, he was not to be seen. Being heedless, and unapprehensive of any further danger, we wandered again into the woods, and were a second time bewildered, and in greater perplexity than before; when on a sudden, looking around us, we beheld the same dog making towards us, till he came directly up to us; and we being much terrified ran from him, till we got a second time into our knowledge; nor did the dog leave us till we were driven by him where we could not possibly run into any more labyrinths. I then turned about to look for the dog, but saw no more of him, although we were upon an open common. This was the Lord's doing, and it was marvellous in our eyes." In the year 1719, when seven years old, little Silas Told, who never forgot those first impressions, was put into Mr. Colson's Hospital, on St. Augustine's Back, near the Quay, Bristol. This school for one hundred boys had cost eleven thousand pounds building. Its founder was one of those fine old merchants of Queen Anne's time, who gave away money with a divine liberality, and devoted his later life to generous and noble works of goodness. Mr. Told, who, when a boy, was present at the public funeral of this great philanthropist, has left an interesting sketch of his history. He was the son of Edward Colson, a journeyman soap-boiler, whose wages did not exceed ten shillings per week, and who had ten children living, of whom Edward was the eldest. When he had arrived to an age fit to be put out an apprentice, his father bound Edward to a Virginia captain. The lad behaved so well as cabin-boy, that, before his ship departed from America for England, he had acquired, by presents from passengers alone, the sum of fifty pounds; and, being of an exceeding liberal disposition, on his arrival at Bristol he dispensed every farthing to the prisoners at Newgate, and shortly after sailed again to Virginia. On his second return, he disposed of a sum twice as large after the same manner. He gradually grew in wealth till he became an East India merchant (before the Company started). Forty sail of stately ships obeyed his bidding, and wealth flowed in upon him from every quarter of the globe. His charities were kingly. Mr. Told relates two remarkable anecdotes of Mr. Colson's benevolence, and his dread of its being in any way thwarted. |