so that the compliment is not so very great.

In his youth he underwent a long rebuke one day from his father without
saying a word, though a satisfactory answer was in his power; on which
his brother Gabriel expressing his surprise, he said that he was thinking
all the time of a scene in a comedy he was writing, for which the
paternal lecture afforded an excellent study.

He loved gardening better than he understood it; was always shifting
his plants, and destroying the seeds, out of impatience to see them
germinate. He was rejoicing once on the coming up of some "capers," which
he had been visiting every day to see how they got on, when it turned out
that his capers were elder-trees!

He was perpetually altering his verses. His manuscripts are full of
corrections. He wrote the exordium of the _Orlando_ over and over again;
and at last could only be satisfied with it in proportion as it was not
his own; that is to say, in proportion as it came nearer to the beautiful
passage in Dante from which his ear and his feelings had caught it.[33]

He, however, discovered that correction was not always improvement. He
used to say, it was with verses as with trees. A plant naturally well
growing might be made perfect by a little delicate treatment; but
over-cultivation destroyed its native grace. In like manner, you might
perfect a happily-inspired verse by taking away any little fault of
expression; but too great a polish deprived it of the charm of the first
conception. It was like over-training a naturally graceful child. If it
be wondered how he who corrected so much should succeed so well, even to
an appearance of happy negligence, it is to be considered that the most
impulsive writers often put down their thoughts too hastily, then correct