poetry, so tender and yet so manly, so natural and real, and yet so dignified and harmonious, as the sonnets and other early poems of Mr. Bowles. Well would it have been for me, perhaps, had I never relapsed into the same mental disease; if I had continued to pluck the flower and reap the harvest from the cultivated surface, instead of delving in the unwholesome quicksilver mines of metaphysic lore. And if in after time I have sought a refuge from bodily pain and mismanaged sensibility in abstruse researches, which exercised the strength and subtlety of the understanding, without awakening the feelings of the heart, still there was a long and blessed interval, during which my natural faculties were allowed to expand, and my original tendencies to develop themselves;-my fancy, and the love of nature, and the sense of beauty in forms and sounds.

TO MR. POOLE

"From October 1781 to October 1782.-After the death of my father, we, of course, changed houses, and I remained with my mother till the spring of 1782, and was a day-scholar to Parson Warren, my father's successor. He was not very deep, I believe; and I used to delight my poor mother by relating little instances of his deficiency in grammar knowledge -every detraction from his merits seeming an oblation to the memory of my father, especially as Warren did certainly pulpitize much better. Somewhere, I think, about April 1782, Judge Buller, who had been educated by my father, sent for me, having procured a Christ's Hospital presentation. I accordingly went to London, and was received and entertained. by my mother's brother, Mr. Bowdon. He was generous as the air, and a man of very

considerable talents; but he was fond, as others have been, of his bottle. He received me with great affection, and I stayed ten weeks at his house, during which I went occasionally to Judge Buller's. My uncle was very proud of me, and used to carry me from coffee-house to coffee-house, and tavern to tavern, where I drank, and talked, and disputed as if I had been a man. Nothing was more common than for a large party to exclaim in my hearing, that I was a prodigy, and so forth; so that while I remained at my uncle's I was most completely spoilt and pampered, both mind and body.

"At length the time came, and I donned the blue coat and yellow stockings, and was sent down to Hertford, a town twenty miles from London, where there are about 300 of the younger Blue-coat boys. At Hertford I was very happy on the whole, for I had plenty to eat and drink, and we had pudding and vegetables almost every day. I remained there six weeks, and then was drafted up to the great school in London, where I arrived in September 1782, and was placed in the second ward,