that his happiness was affected by disappointed affection. To his
friend Mr. Maddock, in July, 1804, he observed:

"I shall never, never marry. It cannot, must not be. As to
affections, mine are already engaged as much as they ever will
be, and this is one reason why I believe my life will be a life
of celibacy. I love too ardently to make love innocent, and
therefore I say farewell to it."

With this passage one of his Sonnets singularly agrees:

When I sit musing on the chequer'd past
(A term much darken'd with untimely woes),
My thoughts revert to her, for whom still flows
The tear, though half disowned; and binding fast
Pride's stubborn cheat to my too yielding heart,
I say to her, she robb'd me of my rest,
When that was all my wealth. 'T is true my breast
Received from her this wearying, lingering smart;
Yet, ah! I cannot bid her form depart;
Though wrong'd, I love her--yet in anger love,
For she was most unworthy. Then I prove
Vindictive joy: and on my stern front gleams,
Throned in dark clouds, inflexible....
The native pride of my much injured heart.

Was the subject of this Sonnet wholly imaginary, or was there some
unfortunate story which, for sufficient reasons, his biographers
have suppressed? It is true, that in his letters, written at
a much later period, he speaks of marriage in a manner not to