which I entertained at school, before I dreamt of any maturer feeling.
I shall never forget the impression it first made on me. I loved my
friend for his gentleness, his candor, his truth, his good repute,
his freedom even from my own livelier manner, his calm and reasonable
kindness. It was not any particular talent that attracted me to him
or anything striking whatsoever. I should say in one word, it was
his goodness. I doubt whether he ever had a conception of a tithe of
the regard and respect I entertained for him; and I smile to think
of the perplexity (though he never showed it) which he probably felt
sometimes at my enthusiastic expressions; for I thought him a kind of
angel. It is no exaggeration to say, that, take away the unspiritual
part of it--the genius and the knowledge--and there is no height of
conceit indulged in by the most romantic character in Shakspeare,
which surpassed what I felt toward the merits I ascribed to him, and
the delight which I took in his society. With the other boys I played
antics, and rioted in fantastic jests; but in his society, or whenever
I thought of him, I fell into a kind of Sabbath state of bliss; and I
am sure I could have died for him.

* * * * *

ANECDOTE OF MATHEWS.--One morning, after stopping all night at this
pleasant house, I was getting up to breakfast, when I heard the noise
of a little boy having his face washed. Our host was a merry bachelor,
and to the rosiness of a priest might, for aught I knew, have added
the paternity; but I had never heard of it, and still less expected
to find a child in his house. More obvious and obstreperous proofs,
however, of the existence of a boy with a dirty face, could not have
been met with. You heard the child crying and objecting; then the
woman remonstrating; then the cries of the child snubbed and swallowed