This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1843 edition. Excerpt: ...would otherwise have crushed it. He discussed these subjects with the rector, and with his friend Seth Wagstaff, with much animation, and found himself capable even of diffusing a cheerfulness over the mind of his father. The winter was not yet over when his work was published, and the instant avidity with which it was hailed, and the high encomiums which it received on all hands, had something magical in its effects on his spirits. Edition after edition was called for with wonderful rapidity; letters of thanks and congratulation poured in from every quarter, and many of them from men of such exalted station and fame, both literary, religious, and political, as quite astonished him. This was more than he had calculated upon. He looked on this communication thus at once opened with minds for which he had the highest veneration, as a proud recompense for all former mortification, and as shewing him that he had done gross injustice to the hearts and virtues of his countrymen, from judging only of those mingled in the uproar of interested strife. His father, his friends, the clergyman, and Seth, were not the less proud of his success: it cast a cheering sunshine all round them, and they ceased to sigh, except when they thought how the heart of Mrs. Middleton would have beat at this fair fame of her son. Spring was already sending out its tender and beautiful harbingers; the snowdrop appeared with the thaw, and the strengthening and lengthening light of the days, called out the spirit to glance to far-off hills, and to see a greenness creeping over the landscape, as the hues of returning health kindle in the face of a young invalid. Charles Middleton one day--under the influence of these things, which sent as it were a soft and tender spring also into...