me containing
the verses is in very few hands, I cannot resist the temptation of
giving a few extracts here:--

"Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind,--
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind,
And I will not descend to a world I despise.

"Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me at once to go forth;
And, when infancy's years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.

_"The fire, in the cavern of AEtna concealed,
Still mantles unseen, in its secret recess;--
At length, in a volume terrific revealed,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.

"Oh thus, the desire in my bosom for fame
Bids me live but to hope for Posterity's praise;
Could I soar, with the Phoenix, on pinions of flame,
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze._

"For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave?
Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath,--
Their glory illumines the gloom of the grave!"

In his hours of rising and retiring to rest he was, like his mother,
always very late; and this habit he never altered during the remainder
of his life. The night, too, was at this period, as it continued
afterwards, his favourite time for composition; and his first visit in
the morning was generally paid to the fair friend who acted as his
amanuensis, and to whom he then gave whatever new products of his
brain the preceding night might have inspired. His next visit was
usually to his friend Mr. Becher's, and from thence to one or two
other houses on the Green, after which the rest of the day was devoted
to his favourite exercises. The evenings he usually passed with the
same family, among whom he began his morning, either in conversation,
or in hearing Miss Pigot play upon the piano-forte, and singing over
with her a certain set of songs which he admired,[59]--among which
the "Maid of Lodi," (with the words, "My heart with love is beating,")
and "When Time who steals our years away," were, it seems, his
particular favourites. He appears, indeed, to have, even thus early,
shown a decided taste for that sort of regular routine of
life,--bringing round the same occupations at the stated
periods,--which formed so much the system of his existence during the
greater part of