grey stone, and then to fall upon the pleasant flowers around me. I
loved silence, for nothing that fell on the ear seemed in accordance
with what so charmed the eye; and thus a positive evil found entrance in
the midst of much enjoyment. I acquired that habit of dreamy
excursiveness into imaginary scenes, and among unreal personages, which
is alike inimical to rational pursuits and opposed to spiritual-
mindedness. To a period so early as the middle of my fourth year I can
revert with the most perfect, most vivid recollection of my habitual
thoughts and feelings; and at that age, I can unhesitatingly declare, my
mind was deeply tinctured with a romance not derived from books, nor
from conversation, but arising, as I verily believe, out of the singular
adaptation to each other of my natural taste and the scenery amidst
which it began to develop itself. Our abode was changed to another part
of the city before this period arrived; but the bishop's garden was
still our haunt, and my supreme delight.

An immense orchard, shrubbery, and flower-garden were attached to my
father's new residence, to which he had removed on account of its
proximity to the church of which he was rector. This, too, was an old-
fashioned house, mantled with a vine, and straggling out, in irregular
buildings, along the slope of the garden. The centre of an immense
grass-plot, studded with apple, pear, and plum trees, was occupied by
the most gigantic mulberry I ever beheld, the thick trunk of which
resembled that of a knotted oak, while in its forest of dark branches
nestled a number of owls and hats. Oh, how I loved to lurk beneath its
shadow on a summer evening, and await the twilight gloom, that the large
owl might come forth and wheel around the tree, and call out his
companions with a melancholy hoot; while the smaller bat, dipping lower
in his flight, brushed by me, accustomed to my presence. I had entered
betimes upon the pernicious study of nursery tales, as they then were,