eath, the Night.
My House a Cottage, more
Then Palace, and should fitting be
For all my Use, no Luxury.
My Garden painted o're
With Natures hand, not Arts; and pleasures yeild,
_Horace_ might envy in his Sabine field.

11.

Thus would I double my Lifes fading space,
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,
These unbought sports, this happy State,
I would not fear nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,
To morrow let my Sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to Day.

You may see by it, I was even then acquainted with the Poets (for the
Conclusion is taken out of _Horace_;) and perhaps it was the immature
and immoderate love of them which stampt first, or rather engraved
these Characters in me: They were like Letters cut into the Bark of
a young Tree, which with the Tree still grow proportionably. But, how
this love came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question: I
believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head
first with such Chimes of Verse, as have never since left ringing
there: For I remember when I began to read, and to take some pleasure
in it, there was wont to lie in my Mothers Parlour (I know not by
what accident, for she her self never in her life read any Book but of
Devotion) but there was wont to lie _Spencers_ Works; this I happened
to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the Stories of the
Knights, and Giants, and Monsters, and brave Houses, which I found
every where there: (Though my understanding had little to do with all
this) and by degrees with the tinckling of the Rhyme and Dance of the
Numbers, so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve
years old, and was thus made a Poet as immediately [1] as a Child is
made an Eunuch. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set
upon Letters, I went to the University; But was soon torn from thence
by that violent Publick storm which would suffer nothing to stand
where it did, but rooted up every Plant, even from the Princely Cedars
to Me, the Hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me
in such a Tempest; for I was cast by it into the Family of one of the
best Persons, and into the Court of one of the best Princesses of the
World. Now though I was here engaged in wayes most contrary to the
Original design of my life, that is, into much company, and no small
business, and into a daily s