of a confidant. A gate leading from Mr Chaworth's grounds to those
of my mother, was the place of our interviews, but the ardour was all
on my side; I was serious, she was volatile. She liked me as a
younger brother, and treated and laughed at me as a boy; she,
however, gave me her picture, and that was something to make verses
upon. Had I married Miss Chaworth, perhaps the whole tenor of my
life would have been different; she jilted me, however, but her
marriage proved anything but a happy one." It is to this attachment
that we are indebted for the beautiful poem of The Dream, and the
stanzas beginning


Oh, had my fate been joined to thine!


Although this love affair a little interfered with his Greek and
Latin, his time was not passed without some attention to reading.
Until he was eighteen years old, he had never seen a review; but his
general information was so extensive on modern topics, as to induce a
suspicion that he could only have collected so much information from
reviews, as he was never seen reading, but always idle, and in
mischief, or at play. He was, however, a devourer of books; he read
eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had perused all
sorts of books from the time he first could spell, but had never read
a review, and knew not what the name implied.

It should be here noticed, that while he was at Harrow, his qualities
were rather oratorical than poetical; and if an opinion had then been
formed of the likely result of his character, the prognostication
would have led to the expectation of an orator. Altogether, his