s reached him, hurried down, and watching for a favourable
moment, crawled on all fours along the weather gunwale to his son, who
was in the mizen rigging. By that time, only three or four planks of
the quarter deck remained, just over the weather-quarter gallery; and
to this spot the unhappy man led his son, making him fast to the rail
to prevent his being washed away. Whenever the boy was seized with a
fit of retching, the father lifted him up and wiped the foam from his
lips; and, if a shower came, he made him open his mouth to receive the
drops, or gently squeezed them into it from a rag. In this affecting
situation both remained four or five days, till the boy expired. The
unfortunate parent, as if unwilling to believe the fact, then raised
the body, gazed wistfully at it, and, when he could no longer
entertain any doubt, watched it in silence till it was carried off by
the sea; then, wrapping himself in a piece of canvass, sunk down and
rose no more; though he must have lived two days longer, as we judged
from the quivering of his limbs, when a wave broke over him."[24]

It was probably during one of the vacations of this year, that the
boyish love for his young cousin, Miss Parker, to which he attributes
the glory of having first inspired him with poetry, took possession of
his fancy. "My first dash into poetry (he says) was as early as 1800.
It was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret
Parker (daughter and grand-daughter of the two Admirals Parker), one
of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. I have long forgotten the
verses, but it would be difficult for me to forget her--her dark
eyes--her long eye-lashes--her completely Greek cast of face and
figure! I was then about twelve--she rather older, perhaps a year. She
died about a year or two afterwards, in consequence of a fall, which
injured her spine, and induced consumption. Her sister Augusta (by
some thought still more beautiful) died of the same malady; and it
was, indeed, in attending her, that Margaret met with the accident
which occasioned her own death. My sister told me, that when she went
to see her, shortly before her death, upon accidentally mentioning my
name, Margaret coloured through the paleness of mortality to the eyes,
to the great astonishment of my sister, who (residing with her
grandmother, Lady Holderness, and seeing but little of me, for family
reasons,) knew nothing of our attachment, nor could conceive why my
name