for intensifying it; an amusement for which he possessed an understood privilege. It was painful in after-life to see his good looks swallowed up in corpulency, and his once handsome mouth thrusting its under lip out, and panting with asthma. I believe he was originally so well constituted, in point of health and bodily feeling, that he fancied he could go on all his life without taking any of the usual methods to preserve his comfort. The editorship of the Times, which turned his night into day, and would have been a trying burden to any man, completed the bad consequences of his negligence; and he died painfully before he was old. Barnes wrote elegant Latin verse, a classical English style, and might assuredly have made himself a name, in wit and literature, had he cared much for any thing beyond his glass of wine and his Fielding.

What pleasant days have I not passed with him, and other schoolfellows, bathing in the New River, and boating on the Thames. He and I began to learn Italian together; and any body not within the pale of the enthusiastic, might have thought us mad, as we went shouting the beginning of Metastasio's ode to Venus, as loud as we could bawl, over the Hornsey-fields. I can repeat it to this day, from those

first lessons.

7

Scendi propizia
Col tuo splendore,
O bella Venere,
Madre d'Amore;

Madre d'Amore,

Che sola sei
Piacer degli uomini,
E degli dei.*

On the same principle of making invocations as loud as possible, and at the same time of fulfilling the prophecy of a poet, and also for the purpose of indulging ourselves with an echo, we used to lie upon our oars at Richmond, and call, in the most vociferous manner, upon the spirit of Thomson to "rest."

แ

Descend propitious with thy brightness, O beautiful Venus, Mother of Love; Mother of Love, who alone art the pleasure of men and of gods."

DEPARTURE FROM SCHOOL.

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore,

When Thames in summer wreaths is drest,

And oft suspend the dashing oar

To bid his gentle spirit rest.

Collins's Ode on the Death of Thomson.

121

It was more like "perturbing" his spirit than laying it. One day Barnes fell overboard, and, on getting into the boat again, he drew a little edition of Seneca out of his pocket, which seemed to have become fat with the water. It was like an extempore dropsy.

Another time, several of us being tempted to bathe on a very hot day, near Hammersmith, and not exercising sufficient patience in selecting our spot, we were astonished at receiving a sudden lecture from a lady. She was in a hat and feathers, and riding-habit; and as the grounds turned out to belong to the Margravine of Anspach (Lady Craven), we persuaded ourselves that our admonitrix, who spoke in no measured terms, was her Serene Highness herself. The obvious reply to her was, that if it was indiscreet in us not to have chosen a more sequestered spot, it was not excessively the reverse in a lady to come and rebuke us. I related this story to my acquaintance, Sir Robert Ker Porter, who knew her. His observation was, that nothing wonderful was to be wondered at in the Margravine.

I was fifteen when I put off my band and blue skirts for a coat and neckcloth. I was then first Deputy-Grecian, and I had the honor of going out of the school in the same rank, at the same age, and for the same reason, as my friend Charles Lamb. The reason was that I hesitated in my speech. I did not stammer half so badly as I used; and it is very seldom that I halt at a syllable now; but it was understood that a Grecian was bound to deliver a public speech before he left school, and to go into the church afterward; and as I could do neither of these things, a Grecian I could not be. So I put on my coat and waistcoat, and, what was stranger, my hat; a very uncomfortable addition to my sensations. For eight years I had gone bareheaded; save now and then, a few inches of pericranium, when the little cap, no larger than a crumpet, was stuck VOL. I.-F

on one side, to the mystification of the old ladies in the

streets.

I then cared as little for the rains as I did for any thing else. I had now a vague sense of worldly trouble, and of a great and serious change in my condition; besides which, I had to quit my old cloisters, and my playmates, and long habits of all sorts; so that, what was a very happy moment to schoolboys in general, was to me one of the most painful of my life. I surprised my schoolfellows and the master with the melancholy of my tears. I took, leave of my books, of my friends, of my seat in the grammar-school, of my goodhearted nurse and her daughter, of my bed, of the cloisters, and of the very pump out of which I had taken so many delicious draughts, as if I should never see them again, though I meant to come every day. The fatal hat was put on; my father was come to fetch me.

We, hand in hand, with strange new steps and slow,
Through Holborn took our meditative way.

CHAPTER V.

YOUTH.

Juvenile verses.-Visits to Cambridge and Oxford.-Danger of drowning.—Bobart, the Oxford coachman.-Spirit of University training. -Dr. Raine, of the Charter-House.-A juvenile beard.-America and Dr. Franklin.--Maurice, author of Indian Antiquities.-Welsh bards. A religious boy.-Doctrine of self-preservation.-A walk from Ramsgate to Brighton.-Character of a liver at inns.-A devout landlord.-Inhospitality to the benighted.-Answers of rustics to wayfarers.-Pedestrian exploits.-Dangers of delay.—The club of elders.

FOR Some time after I left school, I did nothing but visit my schoolfellows, haunt the book-stalls, and write verses. My father collected the verses; and published them with a large list of subscribers, numbers of whom belonged to his old congregations. I was as proud perhaps of the book at that time, as I am ashamed of it now. The French Revolution, though the worst portion of it was over, had not yet shaken up and re-invigorated the sources of thought all over Europe. At least I was not old enough, perhaps was not able, to get out of the trammels of the regular imitative poetry, or versification rather, which was taught in the schools. My book was a heap of imitations, all but absolutely worthless. But absurd as it was, it did me a serious mischief; for it made me suppose that I had attained an end, instead of not having reached even a commencement; and thus caused me to waste in imitation a good many years which I ought to have devoted to the study of the poetical art, and of nature. Coleridge has praised Boyer for teaching us to laugh at "muses," and "Castalian streams;" but he ought rather to have lamented that he did not teach us how to love them wisely, as he might have done had he really known any thing about poetry, or loved Spenser and the old poets, as he thought he admired the new. Even Coleridge's juvenile poems were none the better for Boyer's training. As to

mine, they were for the most part as mere trash as anti-Castalian heart could have desired. I wrote "odes" because Collins and Gray had written them, pastorals" because Pope had written them, "blank verse" because Akenside and Thomson had written blank verse, and a 66 Palace of Pleasure" because Spenser had written a "Bower of Bliss." But in all these authors I saw little but their words, and imitated even those badly. I had nobody to bid me to go to the nature which had originated the books. Coleridge's landed teacher put into my hands, at one time, the life of Pope by Ruff head (the worst he could have chosen), and at another (for the express purpose of cultivating my love of poetry) the Irene and other poems of Dr. Johnson! Pope's smooth but unartistical versification spell-bound me for a long time. Of Johnson's poem I retained nothing but the epigram beginning "Hermit hoar-"

"Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,

Wearing out life's evening gray,
Strike thy bosom, sage, and tell
What is bliss, and which the way.

"Thus I spoke, and speaking, sighed,
Scarce repressed the starting tear,
When the hoary sage replied,

Come, my lad, and drink some beer."

This was the first epigram of the kind which I had seen; and it had a cautionary effect upon me to an extent which its author might hardly have desired. The grave Dr. Johnson and the rogue Ambrose de Lamela, in Gil Blas, stood side by side in my imagination as unmaskers of venerable appearances.

Not long after the publication of my book, I visited two of my school-fellows, who had gone to Cambridge and Oxford. The repute of it, unfortunately, accompanied me, and gave a foolish increase to my self-complacency. At Oxford, I was introduced to Kett, the poetry professor, a good-natured man, with a face like a Houhynnm (Swift should have thought it a pattern for humanity). It was in the garden of his college (Trinity); and he expressed a hope that I should feel inspired then "by the muse of Warton."

I was