Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and Burns. But with these exceptions his
affections rested mainly on writers who had lived before him; on _some_ of
them; for there were "things in books' clothing" from which he turned away
loathing. He was not a worshipper of the customs and manners of old times,
so much as of the tangible objects that old times have bequeathed to us;
the volumes tinged with decay, the buildings (the Temple, Christ's
Hospital, &c.) colored and enriched by the hand of age. Apart from these,
he clung to the time present; for if he hated anything in the extreme
degree, he hated change.

He clung to life, although life had bestowed upon him no magnificent
gifts; none, indeed, beyond books, and friends (a "ragged regiment"), and
an affectionate, contented mind. He had, he confesses, "an intolerable
disinclination to dying;" which beset him especially in the winter months.
"I am not content to pass away like a weaver's shuttle. Any alteration in
this earth of mine discomposes me. My household gods plant a terrible
fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood." He seems never to have
looked into the Future. His eyes were on the present or (oftener) on the
past. It was always thus from his boyhood. His first readings were
principally Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Isaac Walton, &c. "I gather
myself up" (he writes) "unto the old things." He has indeed extracted the
beauty and innermost value of Antiquity, whenever he has pressed it into
his service.




CHAPTER II.

_Birth and Parentage.--Christ's Hospital.--South Sea House and India