It was still more fortunate that there was none to direct me in my favourite pursuit, certain as it is that any instructor would have interfered with the natural and healthy growth of that poetical spirit which was taking its own course. That spirit was like a plant which required no forcing, nor artificial culture; only air and sunshine, and the rains and the dews of heaven. I do not remember in any part of my life to have been so conscious of intellectual improvement as I was during the year and half before I was placed at Westminster: an improvement derived, not from books or instruction, but from constantly exercising myself in English verse; and from the developement of mind which that exercise produced, I can distinctly trace my progress by help of a list, made thirty years ago, of all my compositions in verse, which were then in existence, or which I had at that time destroyed.

Early as my hopes had been directed toward the drama, they received a more decided and more fortunate direction from the frequent perusal of Tasso, Ariosto, and Spenser. I had read also Mickle's Lusiad and Pope's Homer. If you add to these an extensive acquaintance with the novels of the day, and with the Arabian and mock-Arabian tales, the whole works of Josephus (taken in by me with my pocket-money in three-score sixpenny numbers, which I now possess), such acquaintance with Greek and Roman history as a schoolboy picks up from his lessons and from Goldsmith's abridged histories, and such acquaintance with their fables as may be learnt from Ovid, from the old Pantheon, and above all from

the end of Littleton's Dictionary, you will have a fair account of the stock upon which I began. But Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher, must not be forgotten; nor Sidney's Arcadia ; nor Rowley's Poems, for Chatterton's history was fresh in remembrance, and that story, which would have affected one of my disposition anywhere, acted upon me with all the force of local associations.

The first of my Epic Dreams was created by Ariosto. I meant to graft a story upon the Orlando Furioso, not knowing how often this had been done by Italian and Spanish imitators. Arcadia was to have been the title and the scene; thither I meant to carry the Moors under Marsilius after their overthrow in France, and there to have overthrown them again by a hero of my own, named Alphonso, who had caught the Hippogriff. This must have been when I was between nine and ten, for some verses of it were written on the covers of my Phædrus. They were in the heroic couplet. Among my aunt's books was the first volume of Bysshe's Art of Poetry, which, worthless as it is, taught me at that age the principle upon which blank verse is constructed, and thereby did me good service at a good time. I soon learnt to prefer that metre, not because it was easier than rhyme (which was easy enough), but because I felt in it a greater freedom and range of language, because I was sensible that in rhyming I sometimes used expressions, for the sake of the rhyme, which were far-fetched, and certainly would not have occurred without that cause. My second subject was the Trojan Brutus: the defeat and death of King Richard and the Union

of the two Roses was my third. In neither of these did I make much progress; but with the story of Egbert I was more persevering, and partly transcribed several folio sheets. The sight of these was an encouragement to proceed, and I often looked at them with delight in the anticipation of future fame. This was a solitary feeling, for my ambition or vanity (whichever it may deserve to be called) was not greater than the shyness which accompanied it. My portfolio was of course held sacred. One day, how.. ever, it was profaned by an acquaintance of my aunt's who called to pay a morning visit. She was shown into the parlour, and I, who was sent to say my aunt would presently wait upon her, found her with my precious Egbert in her hand. Her compliments had no effect in abating my deep resentment at this unpardonable curiosity; and, though she was a goodnatured woman, I am afraid I never quite forgave her. Determining, however, never to incur the risk of a second exposure, I immediately composed a set of characters for my own use.

In my twelfth and thirteenth year, besides these loftier attempts, I wrote three heroic epistles in rhyme: the one was from Diomede to Egiale; the second from Octavia to Mark Anthony; the third from Alexander to his father Herod, a subject with which Josephus supplied me. I made also some translations from Ovid, Virgil, and Horace ; and composed a satirical description of English manners, as delivered by Omai, the Taheitean, to his countrymen on his return. the thirteenth anniversary of my birth, supposing (by an error which appeared to be common enough at the

On

end of the century) that I was then entering the first year of my teens instead of completing it, and looking upon that as an aweful sort of step in life, I wrote some verses in a strain of reflection upon mortality grave enough to provoke a smile when I recollect them. Among my attempts at this time were two descriptive pieces entitled Morning in the Country, and Morning in Town, in eight-syllable rhymes, and in imitation of Cunningham. There was also a satirical peep into Pluto's dominions, in rhyme. I remember the conclusion only, and that because it exhibits a singular indication how strongly and how early my heart was set upon that peculiar line of poetry which I have pursued with most ardour. It described the Elysium of the Poets, and that more sacred part of it in which Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Spenser, Camoens, and Milton were assembled. While I was regarding them, Fame came hurrying by with her arm full of laurels and asking in an indignant voice if there was no poet who would deserve them? Upon which I reached out my hand, snatched at them, and awoke.

One of these juvenile efforts was wholly original in its design. It was an attempt to exhibit the story of the Trojan War in a dramatic form, laying the scene in Elysium, where the events which had happened on earth were related by the souls of the respective heroes as they successively descended. The opening was a dialogue between Laodamia and Protesilaus, in couplets: the best rhymes which I had yet written. But I did not proceed far, probably because the design was too difficult, and this would

have been reason enough for abandoning it even if I had not entered with more than usual ardour upon a new heroic subject, of which Cassibelan was the hero. I finished three books of this poem, and had advanced far in the fourth before I went to Westminster. All this was written fairly out in my own private characters, and in my best writing, if one may talk of calligraphy in an unknown hand which looked something like Greek, but more like conjuration, from the number of trines and squares which it contained. These characters, however, proved fatal to the poem, for it was not possible for me to continue it at school, for want of privacy; disuse made the cypher so difficult that I could not read it without almost spelling as I went on; and at last, in very vexation, I burnt the manuscript.

I wonder whether Spurzheim could, at that time, have discovered an organ of constructiveness in my pericranium. The Elysian drama might seem to indicate that the faculty was there, but not a trace of it was to be found in any of the heroic poems which I attempted. They were all begun upon a mere general notion of the subject, without any prearrangement, and very little preconception of the incidents by which the catastrophe was to be brought about. When I sat down to write, I had to look as much for the incidents, as for the thoughts and words in which they were to be clothed. I expected them to occur just as readily; and so indeed, such as they were, they did. My reading in the old chivalrous romances has been sufficiently extensive to justify me in asserting that the greater number of