0] In his "Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of
Prodigies."

[71] This, his most valuable work, has been most carefully edited,
with numerous additions by Dr. Bliss, and is the great
authority for Lives of Oxford men. Its author, born at Oxford
in 1632, died there in 1695, having devoted his life strictly
to study.--ED.

[72] Harleian MSS. 7523.

THE DESPAIR OF YOUNG POETS.

WILLIAM PATTISON was a young poet who perished in his twentieth year;
his character and his fate resemble those of Chatterton. He was one
more child of that family of genius, whose passions, like the torch,
kindle but to consume themselves.

The youth of Pattison was that of a poet. Many become irrecoverably
poets by local influence; and Beattie could hardly have thrown his
"Minstrel" into a more poetical solitude than the singular spot which
was haunted by our young bard. His first misfortune was that of having
an anti-poetical parent; his next was that of having discovered a spot
which confirmed his poetical habits, inspiring all the melancholy and
sensibility he loved to indulge. This spot, which in his fancy
resembled some favourite description in Cowley, he called "Cowley's
Walk." Some friend, who was himself no common painter of fancy, has
delineated the whole scenery with minute touches, and a freshness of
colouring, warm with reality. Such a poetical habitation becomes a
part of the poet himself, reflecting his character, and even
descriptive of his manners.

"On one side of 'Cowley's Walk' is a huge rock, grown over with moss
and ivy climbing on its sides, and in some parts small trees spring
out of the crevices of the rock; at the bottom are a wild plantation
of irregular trees, in every part looking aged and venerable. Among
these cavities, one larger than the rest was the cave he loved to sit
in: arched like a canopy, its rustic borders were edged with ivy
hanging down, overshadowing the place, and hence he called it (for
poets must give a name to every object they love) 'Hederinda,' bearing
ivy. At the foot of this grotto a stream of water ran along the walk,
so that its level path had trees and water on one side, and a wild
rough precipice on the other. In winter, this spot looked full of
horror--the naked trees, the dark rock, and the desolate waste; but in
the spring, the singing of the birds, the fragrancy of the flowers,
and the murmuring of the stream,