"Iliad," tacked together with verses of his own. He became acquainted
with Dryden's works, and went to Wills's coffee-house to see him. He
says, "Virgilium tantum vidi." Such transient meetings of literary orbs
are among the most interesting passages in biography. Thus met Galileo
with Milton, Milton with Dryden, Dryden with Pope, and Burns with Scott.
Carruthers strikingly remarks, "Considering the perils and uncertainties
of a literary life--its precarious rewards, feverish anxieties,
mortifications, and disappointments, joined to the tyranny of the
Tonsons and Lintots, and the malice and envy of dunces, all of which
Dryden had long and bitterly experienced--the aged poet could hardly
have looked at the delicate and deformed boy, whose preternatural
acuteness and sensibility were seen in his dark eyes, without a feeling
approaching to grief, had he known that he was to fight a battle like
that under which he was himself then sinking, even though the Temple of
Fame should at length open to receive him." At twelve, he wrote the "Ode
to Solitude;" and shortly after, his satirical piece on Elkanah Settle,
and some of his translations and imitations. His next period, he says,
was in Windsor Forest, where for several years he did nothing but read
the classics and indite poetry. He wrote a tragedy, a comedy, and four
books of an Epic called "Alexander," all of which afterwards he
committed to the flames. He translated also a portion of Statius, and
Cicero "De Senectute," and "thought himself the greatest genius that
ever was." His father encouraged him in his studies, and when his verses
did not please him, sent him back to "new turn" them, saying, "These are
not good rhymes." His principal favourites were Virgil's "Eclogues," in
Latin; and in English, Spencer, Waller, and Dryden--admiring Spencer, we
presume, for his luxuriant fancy, Waller for his smooth versification,
and Dryden for his vigorous sense and vivid sarcasm. In the Forest, he
became acquainted with Sir William Trumbull, the retired secretary of
state, a man of general accomplishments, who read, rode, conversed with