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under the care of a Mr. Shipley, who soon discovered that he was a boy of quick perception, and very admirable talents; and came with joy, like a good man, to relieve the anxiety and painful suspicions of his family.

While his school-masters were complaining that they could make nothing of him, he discovered what Nature had made him, and wrote satires upon them. These pieces were never shown to any, except his most particular friends, who say that they were pointed and severe. They are enumerated in the table of Contents to one of his manuscript volumes, under the title of School-Lampoons; but, as was to be expected, he had cut the leaves out and destroyed them.

One of his poems written at this time, and under these feelings, is preserved.

ON BEING CONFINED TO SCHOOL,

One Pleasant Morning in Spring.

Written at the age of thirteen.

THE morning sun's enchanting rays
Now call forth every songster's praise;
Now the lark with upward flight,
Gayly ushers in the light;

While wildly warbling from each tree,
The birds sing songs to Liberty.

But for me no songster sings,
For me no joyous lark up-springs;
For I, confin'd in gloomy school,
Must own the pedant's iron rule,
And far from sylvan shades and bowers,
In durance vile must pass the hours;
There con the scholiast's dreary lines
Where no bright ray of genius shines,
And close to rugged learning cling,
While laughs around the jocund spring.

How gladly would my soul forego
All that arithmeticians know,
Or stiff grammarians quaintly teach,
Or all that industry can reach,
To taste each morn of all the joys
That with the laughing sun arise;
And unconstrain'd to rove along
The bushy brakes and glens among;

And woo the muse's gentle power,
In unfrequented rural bower.

But, ah! such heav'n-approaching joys
WiH never greet my longing eyes;
Still will they cheat in vision fine,

Yet never but in fancy shine.

Oh, that I were the little wren,
That shrilly chirps from yonder glen!
Oh, far away I then would rove,
To some secluded bushy grove;

There hop and sing with careless glee,
Hop and sing at liberty;

And till death should stop my lays,
Far from men wonld spend my days,

About this time his mother was induced, by the advice of several friends, to open a Ladies' Boarding and Day School, in Nottingham, her eldest daughter having previously been a teacher in one for some time. In this she succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations, and Henry's home comforts were thus materially increased, though it was still out of the power of his family to give him that education, and direction in life, which his talents deserved and required.

It was now determined to breed him up to the hosiery trade, the staple manufacture of his native place, and at the age of fourteen he was placed in a stocking-loom, with the view, at some future period, of getting a situation in a hosier's warehouse. During the time that he was thus employed, he might be said to be truly unhappy; he went

to his work with evident reluctance, and could not refrain from sometimes hinting his extreme aversion to it: but the circumstances of his family obliged them to turn a deaf ear*. His mother, however, secretly felt that he

* His temper and tone of mind at this period, when he was in his fourteenth year, are displayed in this extract, from an address to Contemplation.

THEE do I own, the prompter of my joys,
The soother of my cares, inspiring peace
And I will ne'er forsake thee.-Men may rave,
And blame and censure me, that I don't tie
My ev'ry thought down to the desk, and spend
The morning of my life in adding figures
With accurate monotony; that so

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The good things of the world may be my lot,
And I might taste the blessedness of wealth:
But, Oh! I was not made for money getting;
For me no much respected plum awaits,
Nor civic honour, envied For as still
I tried to cast with school dexterity
The interesting sums, my vagrant thoughts
Would quick revert to many a woodland haunt,
Which fond remembrance cherish'd, and the pen
Dropt from my senseless fingers as I pictur'd,
In my mind's eye, how on the shores of Trent
I erewhile wander'd with my early friends
In social intercourse. And then I'd think
How contrary pursuits had thrown us wide,
One from the other, scatter'd o'er the globe;
They were set down with sober steadiness,
Each to his occupation. I alone,

was worthy of better things; to her he spoke more openly he could not bear, he said, the thought of

A wayward youth misled by Fancy's vagaries,
Remain'd unsettled, insecure, and veering
With ev'ry wind to ev'ry point o' th' compass.
Yes, in the Counting House I could indulge
In fits of close abstraction;-yea, amid
The busy bustling crouds could meditate,
And send my thoughts ten thousand leagues away
Beyond the Atlantic, resting on my friend.
Aye, Contemplation, ev'n in earliest youth
I woo'd thy heavenly influence! I would walk
A weary way when all my toils were done,
To lay myself at night in some lone wood,
And hear the sweet song of the nightingale.
Oh, those were times of happiness, and still

To memory doubly dear; for growing years

Had not then taught me man was made to mourn ;

And a short hour of solitary pleasure,

Stolen from sleep, was ample recompence

For all the hateful bustles of the day.

My op'ning mind was ductile then, and plastic,
And soon the marks of care were worn away,
While I was sway'd by every novel impulse,
Yielding to all the fancies of the hour.
But it has now assum'd its character,

Mark'd by strong lineaments, its haughty tone,
Like the firm oak, would sooner break than bend.

Yet still, oh Contemplation! I do love

To' indulge thy solemn musings; still the same

With thee alone I know to melt and weep,

In thee alone delighting. Why along

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