spending seven years of his life in shining and folding up stockings; he wanted something to occupy his brain, and he should be wretched if he continued longer at this trade, or indeed in any thing except one of the learned professions. These frequent complaints, after a year's application, or rather misapplication (as his brother says) at the loom, convinced her that he had a mind destined for nobler pursuits. To one so situated, and with nothing but his own talents and exertions to depend upon, the Law seemed to be the only practicable line. His affectionate and excellent mother made every possible effort to effect his wishes, his father being very averse to the plan, and at length, after overcoming a variety of obstacles, he was fixed in the office of Messrs. Coldham and Enfield, attornies and town-clerks of Nottingham. As no premium could be given with him, he was engaged to serve two years before he was articled, so that though he entered this office when he was fifteen, he was not articled till the commencement of the year 1802.

On his thus entering the law, it was recommended to

The dusky tract of commerce should I toil,
When with an easy competence content,
I can alone be happy; where with thee

I may enjoy the loveliness of nature,
And loose the wings of Fancy!-Thus alone
Can I partake of happiness on Earth,
And to be happy here is man's chief end,

For to be happy he must needs be good.

him by his employers, that he should endeavour to ob tain some knowledge of Latin. He had now only the little time which an attorney's office, in very extensive practice, afforded; but great things may be done in "those hours of leisure which even the busiest may create*," and to his ardent mind no obstacles were too discouraging. He received some instruction in the first rudiments of this language, from a person who then resided at Nottingham under a feigned name, but was soon obliged to leave it, to elude the search of government, who were then seeking to secure him. Henry discovered him to be Mr. Cormick, from a print affixed to a continuation of Hume and Smollet, and published, with their histories, by Cooke. He is, I believe, the same person who wrote a life of Burke. If he received any other assistance it was very trifling; yet, in the course of ten months, he enabled himself to read Horace with tolerable facility, and had made some progress in Greek, which indeed he began first. He used to exercise himself in declining the Greek nouns and verbs, as he was going to and from the office, so valuable was time become to him. From this time he contracted a habit of employing his mind in study during his walks, which he continued to the end of his life.

He now became almost estranged from his family; even at his meals he would be reading, and his evenings

* Turner's Preface to the History of the Anglo-Saxons,

his

were entirely devoted to intellectual improvement. He had a little room given him, which was called his study, and here his milk supper was taken up to him, for to avoid any loss of time, he refused to sup with his family, though earnestly intreated so to do, as his mother already began to dread the effects of this severe and unremitting application. The law was his first pursuit, to which papers show he had applied himself with such industry, as to make it wonderful that he could have found time, busied as his days were, for any thing else. Greek and Latin were the next objects; at the same time he made himself a tolerable Italian scholar, and acquired some knowledge both of the Spanish and Portugueze. His medical friends say that the knowledge he had obtained of chemistry was very respectable. Astrónomy and electricity were among his studies; some attention he paid to drawing, in which it is probable he would have excelled. He was passionately fond of music, and could play very pleasingly by ear on the piano-forte, composing the bass to the air he was playing; but this propensity he checked, lest it might interfere with more important objects. He had a turn for mechanics, and all the fittings up of his study were the work of his own hands.

At a very early age, indeed soon after he was taken from school, Henry was ambitious of being admitted a member of a Literary Society, then existing in Nottingham, but was objected to on account of his youth; after repeated attempts, and repeated failures, he succeeded in his wish, through the exertions of some of his friends, and

was elected. In a very short time, to the great surprise of the Society, he proposed to give them a Lecture, and they, probably from curiosity, acceded to the proposal. The next evening they assembled, he lectured upon Genius, and spoke extempore for above two hours, in such a manner, that he received the unanimous thanks of the Society, and they elected this young Roscius of oratory their Professor of Literature. There are certain courts at Nottingham, in which it is necessary for an attorney to plead; and he wished to qualify himself for an eloquent speaker, as well as a sound lawyer.

With the profession in which he was placed, he was well pleased, and suffered no pursuit, numerous as his pursuits were, to interfere in the slightest degree with its duties. Yet he soon began to have higher aspirations, and to cast a wistful eye toward the universities with little hope of ever attaining their important advantages, yet probably not without some hope, however faint. There was at this time a magazine in publication, called the Monthly Preceptor, which proposed prize themes for boys and girls to write upon; and which was encouraged by many schoolmasters, some of whom, for their own credit, and that of the important institutions in which they were placed, should have known better than to encourage it. But in schools, and in all practical systems of education, emulation is made the main spring, as if there were not enough of the leaven of disquietude in our natures, without inoculating it with this dilutement-this vaccine virus of envy. True it is that we need encou

ragement in youth; that though our vices spring up and thrive in shade and darkness, like poisonous fungi, our better powers require light and air: and that pra ise is the sunshine, without which genius will wither, fad e, and die, or rather in search of which, like a plant that is debarred from it, will push forth in contortions and deformity. But such practices as that of writing for: public prizes, of publicly declaiming, and of enacting play s before the neighbouring gentry, teach boys to look for applause instead of being satisfied with approbation, and foster in them that vanity which needs no such cherishin g. This is administering stimulants to the heart, instead of "feeding it with food convenient for it;" and the effect of such stimulants is to dwarf the human mind, as lap-dogs are said to be stopt in their growth, by being closed with gin. Thus forced, it becomes like the sapling w hich shoots up when it should be striking its roots far and deep, and which therefore never attains to more than a sapling's size.

To Henry, however, the opportunity of distinguishing himself, even in the Juvenile Library, was useful; if he had acted with a man's foresight, he could not have done more wisely than by aiming at every distinction within his little sphere. At the age of fifteen, he gained a silver medal for a translation from Horace; and the following year a pair of twelve inch globes, for an irnaginary Tour from London to Edinburgh. He determined upon trying for this prize one evening when at tea with his family, and at supper he read to them his performance,