rs were employed in indulging his passion for reading
and translating. It was during his apprenticeship that he finished the
latter portion of the "Aeneid."

The distance between our residences being so short, I encouraged his
inclination to come over, when he could be spared; and in consequence,
I saw him about five or six times a month, commonly on Wednesdays and
Saturdays, those afternoons being my own most leisure times. He rarely
came empty-handed; either he had a book to read, or brought one with him
to be exchanged. When the weather permitted, we always sat in an arbor
at the end of a spacious garden, and, in Boswellian phrase, "we had good
talk."

I cannot at this time remember what was the spark that fired the train
of his poetical tendencies,--I do not remember what was the first
signalized poetry he read; but he must have given me unmistakable tokens
of his bent of taste; otherwise, at that early stage of his career, I
never could have read to him the "Epithalamion" of Spenser; and this I
perfectly remember having done, and in that (to me) hallowed old arbor,
the scene of many bland and graceful associations,--all the substances
having passed away. He was at that time, I should suppose, fifteen or
sixteen years old; and at that period of life he certainly appreciated
the general beauty of the composition, and felt the more passionate
passages; for his features and exclamations were ecstatic. How often
have I in after-times heard him quote these lines:--

"Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks,
And blesses her with his two happy hands,
How the red roses flush up in her cheeks!
And the pure snow, with goodly vermil stain,
Like crimson dyed in grain,
That even the angels, which continually
About the sacred altar do remain,
Forget their service, and about her fly,
_Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair,
The more they on it stare;_
But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,
Are governed with goodly modesty,
That suffers not one look to glance awry,
Which may let in a little thought unsound."

That night he took away with him the first volume of the "Faery Queen,"
and went through it, as I told his biographer, Mr. Monckton Milnes, "as
a young horse would through a spring meadow,--ramping!" Like a true
poet, too,--a poet "born, not manufactured,"--a poet in grain,--he
especially singled out the epithets, for that fel