Henry's native sweetness was further impaired by a number of prizes won
in magazine competitions. A silver medal and a pair of twelve-inch
globes shortly became his for meritorious contributions to the _Monthly
Mirror_. He was also admitted a member of a famous literary society then
existing in Nottingham, and although the youngest of the sodality he
promptly announced that he proposed to deliver them a lecture. With
mingled curiosity and dismay the gathering assembled at the appointed
time, and the inspired youth harangued them for two hours on the subject
of Genius. The devil, or his agent in Nottingham, had marked Henry for
destruction.

In such a career there can be no doubt as to the next step. He published
a book of poems. His verses, dealing with such topics as Consumption,
Despair, Lullaby of a Female Convict to Her Child the Night Previous to
Execution, Lines Spoken by a Lover at the Grave of His Mistress, The Eve
of Death, and Sonnet Addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady, had been
warmly welcomed by the politest magazines of the time. To wish to
publish them in more permanent form was natural; but the unfortunate
young man conceived the thought that the venture might even be a
profitable one. He had found himself troubled with deafness, which
threatened to annul his industry in the law; moreover, his spirit was
canting seriously toward devotional matters, and thoughts of a college
career and then the church were lively in his mind.

The winter of 1802-3 was busily passed in preparing his manuscript for
the printer. Probably never before or since, until the Rev. John
Franklin Bair of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, set about garnering his
collected works into that volume which is the delight of the wicked, has
a human heart mulled over indifferent verses with so honest a pleasure