There lived at Ecton, during the boyhood
of these four sons, a Mr. John Palmer, the squire of the parish and
lord of an adjacent manor, who, attracted by their intelligence and
spirit, lent them books, assisted them to lessons in drawing and
music, and, in various ways, encouraged them to improve their minds.
All the boys appear to have been greatly profited by Squire Palmer's
friendly aid; but none of them so much as Thomas, the eldest,
inheritor of the family forge and farm."
It was this Thomas who became grandfather of our Benjamin, and whose
expressions in prayer we have quoted. Mr. Parton discovers such
talents there as make profitable conversation at the table and
elsewhere, and are transmitted to posterity. For he says, still
further:
"In families destined at length to give birth to an illustrious
individual, Nature seems sometimes to make an essay of her powers with
that material, before producing the consummate specimen. There was a
remarkable Mr. Pitt before Lord Chatham; there was an extraordinary
Mr. Fox before the day of the ablest debater in Europe; there was a
witty Sheridan before Richard Brinsley; there was a Mirabeau before
the Mirabeau of the French Revolution. And, to cite a higher instance,
Shakespeare's father was, at least, extraordinarily fond of dramatic
entertainments, if we may infer any thing certain from the brief
records of his mayoralty of Stratford, for he appears to have given
the players the kind of welcome that Hamlet admonished Polonius to
bestow upon them.
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