out, he was at work on a new mechanical contrivance,
and had the misfortune to break one of the instruments which he
employed. Now it will be remembered that his father had been the
squire's head carpenter: the widow had carefully hoarded the tools
of his craft, which had belonged to her poor Mark; and though she
occasionally lent them to Leonard, she would not give them up to his
service. Amongst these Leonard knew that he should find the one that he
wanted; and being much interested in his contrivance, he could not wait
till his mother's return. The tools, with other little relies of the
lost, were kept in a large trunk in Mrs. Fairfield's sleepingroom;
the trunk was not locked, and Leonard went to it with out ceremony or
scruple. In rummaging for the instrument his eye fell upon a bundle of
manuscripts; and he suddenly recollected that when he was a mere child,
and before he much knew the difference between verse and prose, his
mother had pointed to these manuscripts, and said, "One day or other,
when you can read nicely, I'll let you look at these, Lenny. My poor
Mark wrote such verses--ah, he was a schollard!" Leonard, reasonably
enough, thought that the time had now arrived when he was worthy the
privilege of reading the paternal effusions, and he took forth the
manuscripts with a keen but melancholy interest. He recognized his
father's handwriting, which he had often seen before in account-books
and memoranda, and read eagerly some trifling poems, which did not show
much genius, nor much mastery of language and rhythm,--such poems, in
short, as a self-educated man, with poetic taste and feeling rather than
poetic inspiration or artistic culture, might compose with credit, but
not for fame. But suddenly, as he turned over these "Occasional
Pieces," Leonard came to others in a different handwriting,--a woman's
handwriting, small and fine and exquisitely formed. He had scarcely read
six lines of these last, before his attention was irresistibly chained.
They were of a different order of merit from poor Mark's; they bore the
unmistakable stamp of genius. Like the poetry of women in general, they
were devoted to personal feeling,--they were not the mirror of a world,
but reflections of a solitary heart. Yet this is the kind of poetry most
pleasing to the young. And the verses in question had another attraction
for Leonard: they seemed to express some struggle akin to his own,--some
complaint against the actual condition