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

But, ah! such heaven-approaching joys
Will 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 would 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

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 plume 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 pictured,

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 crowds 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

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 obtain 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 Smollett, 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.