worm, doth prey upon my vitals, and still they grow again to be devoured, or like civil warfare, where fathers against sons, casting away all natural affection, inhumanly contend, till finally they weaken and destroy the country that produced them. Even like to such pernicious combats, but far more dreadful, are those fights within my breast. For these do vex me in my dreams; while these continue, food cannot nourish me, sleep cannot refresh me. I am consumed as by a slow internal fire. But hark! I must away." [Bell Rings.

The song is somewhat smoother, and is, perhaps, caught from "Blow, blow thou winter's wind," in "As You Like It."

GENTIA, sola.

Cruel the bloody war,

Cruel the winter snows,

Cruel the chilly wind

That from the cold south blows;

But one thing crueller than these

My wonted rest denies,

And that's the bitter, hopeless love

That in my bosom lies.

This may have been written in my brother's thirteenth or fourteenth year.

The Valentines may bear transcription in a biographical sketch, for the sake of the remarks appended to them by the Author.

I.

Since first I saw thy angel face,

Thy modest mien, and heavenly grace,
My soul hath still been tempest-tost,

My heart is altogether lost,

Nor day, nor night, I rest can find,

But hopes and fears distract my mind.

1813.

I sometimes fancy that I see
My lovely Mary smile on me,
Oh! then how great my ecstasy!

But soon, too soon, the pleasing dream

Is borne down black despair's rough stream. Then demons foul impress my brain

With images of foul disdain,

And tell me that I love in vain.

Mary, the beam of thy bright eyes
Alone my hope can realise,

Can drive despair's black night away,
For you're my sun, your smile my day.
Then pity him who loves so true,
Whose joy or grief depends on you;
O say but that thou wilt be mine,
And I for ever will be thine,

Thy ever faithful Valentine.

II.

Oft I've determined to disclose
The torment of my mind;
Her heart is soft, said I, who knows
But what she may be kind?

But when the time to speak is come,
(What can it be that ails me?)

Like any statue I am dumb,

My foolish heart so fails me.

Yet sure, from all I say and do,
Sweet maid, you may discern
That I do love, and that 'tis you

For whom my heart does burn.

O, then, would Cupid fire thy breast,
As he has kindled mine,

No swain on earth were half so blest
As thy fond Valentine.

"Such were my poetic effusions," the author remarks, "at sixteen and seventeen, which I thought very clever at eighteen. I might say of each of these trifles, A poor thing 'twas, but it expressed my fancy!' The second is not unlike a song of Bellay. I cannot think that there is any promise in my juvenilia; for there is no ambition, except to express common-place sensations in bad metaphors."

More promise, perhaps, than if he had gone out of the way to hunt for originality.

The two following are apparently of somewhat later date:

I.

How fair the bosom of our lake,

When each rude wind is hush'd asleep,

And summer's sighs, alone awake,

Over the passive waters creep!

How sweet, all silent and alone,

To lie upon some islet green,

Till I forget all I have known,

And nothing know but that calm scene!

Or let my spirit wander o'er

The world, from common sight conceal'd,-
The enlightening river's further shore,
Where all the wounds of grief are heal'd.

So let the haze of distance veil

Remembrance of all things below,
That guilt may seem a beldame's tale,
And no reality in woe.

Ah! once in such a dream I spent
My days so blessedly deceived,

Still wishing, never discontent,

All things I hoped, [and] all believed.

And will that hope, that faith intense,
Revisit my poor heart no more?

Oh yes! fair nature's influence

Can that unearthly state restore.

II.

"Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming form."-Shakspeare.

A heart is mine all things intending,-
All beginning, nothing ending,—
Skilled to please, yet still offending,—
Wretched, yet exceeding bless'd,-
Wanting all, of all possess'd,-
Confident, yet still despairing,-
Fearful, and yet all too daring,—
Still its own poor self belying,
Its dearest hope and faith denying,-
Happiest when it is weeping,—
Still awake, yet always sleeping,-
In love still changing, never dying,

Still for what earth holds not sighing.

The following exercise was written in the first year of his residence at Oxford :

THE HORSES OF LYSIPPUS.

For ever blest be that victorious hour

That yon fair wanderers freed from tyrant's power!
Once more untrammell'd their proud crests they rear,
In simple majesty and grace austere,

As in old time their god-like part they bore

On Adriatic or Byzantine shore;

Or, as in nobler age and brighter clime,

Beneath Lysippus' hand they rose sublime,
While with auspicious beam Apollo shone,

Smiled on the steeds, and claim'd them for his own.
Like four fair brethren, stately side by side,
They move with solemn manes and lordly pride;
Composed their gait, yet with immense disdain,

Heave their broad chests, and hard their nostrils strain.
Black lour their brows, and fiercely gleam their eyes,
As lightnings glisten from o'erclouded skies;

Superb their course from heaven's meridian height
To view the world beneath, through them made light,
To dive at eve below the purpled waves,
And hide themselves in occidental caves;
There sink to slumbers sweet on weedy beds,
Lull'd by the ocean rolling o'er their heads.
The attendant Seasons, with successive care,
Trim their loose manes, and comb their golden hair;
The laughing Hours with rosy fingers deck
Each forehead stern and proudly arching neck.
Great is the radiant monarch of the day,
Whose curbing arm those giant limbs obey,
Whose strength divine, and never-erring skill,
Can turn and wind those stubborn necks at will.
Thus hymning, Græcia's white-robed bands drew nigh,
And warriors hail'd the strangers from the sky.
Some loud adored, some speechless stood aghast,
As if they heard the fiery nostrils' blast,
And measured thunder of those high-raised hoofs,
That erewhile echo'd round the Olympian roofs.
E'en Ammon's offspring own'd their beauty rare,
And held his own Bucephalus less fair.—
Such honours waited on their youthful days,
The votary's worship and the monarch's praise;
And still, though rooted from fair Græcia's soil,
The conqueror's guerdon and the plunderer's spoil,
Forced, like their lord, the glory-crowned sun,
From east to west an arduous race to run;
Twice to [endure] a tyrant's yoke their doom,
Late in proud France, and erst in lordly Rome;
Yet shall they, freed from thraldom and disgrace,
Find out at last a peaceful resting-place.
Triumphant songs shall shake Mark's hollow pile,
And faded Venice lift her head and smile.