His
health was not very solid, and he was debarred by it from sharing the
pleasures of his neighbour squires. He determined to make books and
music the occupation of his life, and in 1796, on his twenty-seventh
birthday, he began to record in a diary his impressions of what he
read. He went on very quietly and luxuriantly, living among his books
in his house at Ipswich, and occasionally rolling in his post-chaise
to valetudinarian baths and "Spaws."

When he had kept his diary for fourteen years, it seemed to a
pardonable vanity so amusing, that he persuaded himself to give part
of it to the world. The experiment, no doubt, was a very dubious one.
After much hesitation, and in an evil hour, perhaps, he wrote: "I am
induced to submit to the indulgence of the public the idlest work,
probably, that ever was composed; but, I could wish to hope, not
absolutely the most unentertaining or unprofitable." The welcome his
volume received must speedily have reassured him, but he had pledged
himself to print no more, and he kept his promise, though he went on
writing his Diary until he died in 1825. His MSS. passed into the
hands of John Mitford, who amused the readers of _The Gentleman's
Magazine_ with fragments of them for several years. Green has had many
admirers in the past, amongst whom Edward FitzGerald was not the least
distinguished. But he was always something of a local worthy, author
of one anonymous book, and of late he has been little mentioned
outside the confines of Suffolk.

It would be difficult to find an example more striking than the _Diary
of a Lover of Literature_ of exclusive absorption in the world of
books. It opens in a gloomy year for British politics, but there is
found no allusion to current events. There is a victory off Cape
St. Vincent in February, 1797, but Green is attacking Bentley's
annotations on Horace. Bonaparte and his army are buried in the sands
of Egypt; our Diarist takes occasion to be buried in Shaftesbury's
_Enquiry Concerning Virtue_. Europe rings with Hohenlinden, but the
news does not reach Mr. Thomas Green, nor disturb him in his perusal
of Soame Jenyns' _View of Christianity_. The fragment of the _Diary_
here preserved runs from September 1796 to June 1800. No one would
guess, from any word between cover and cover, that these were not
halcyon years, an epoch of complete European tranquillity. War upon
war might wake the echoes, but the river ran softly by the Ipswich
garden of