pages, closely written. I have also found in his early hand-writing (for
there was a considerable change in his writing afterwards) a collection
of remarks on Sir William Temple's works, which may likewise have been
among the fruits of his reading at Waltham Abbey.

These remarks are confined chiefly to verbal criticism, and prove, in
many instances, that he had not yet quite formed his taste to that
idiomatic English, which was afterwards one of the great charms of his
own dramatic style. For instance, he objects to the following phrases:--
"Then I _fell to_ my task again."--"These things _come_, with
time, to be habitual."--"By which these people _come_ to be either
scattered or destroyed."--"Which alone could pretend to _contest_
it with them:" (upon which phrase he remarks, "It refers to nothing
here:") and the following graceful idiom in some verses by Temple:--

"Thy busy head can find no gentle rest
For thinking on the events," &c. &c.

Some of his observations, however, are just and tasteful. Upon the Essay
"Of Popular Discontents," after remarking, that "Sir W. T. opens all his
Essays with something as foreign to the purpose as possible," he has the
following criticism:--"Page 260, 'Represent misfortunes for faults, and
_mole-hills_ for _mountains_,'--the metaphorical and literal
expression too often coupled. P. 262, 'Upon these four wheels the
chariot of state may in all appearance drive easy and safe, or at least
not be too much _shaken_ by the usual _roughness_ of ways,
unequal _humors_ of _men_, or any common accidents,'--another
instance of the confusion of the metaphorical and literal expression."

Among the passages he quotes from Temple's verses, as faulty, is the