1845.

Early attempts in English verse.--Advantages of life at Doncaster.--A
school incident.--Fagging.--Story of a dog.--Robbery.--My schoolfellow,
Henry Alexander.--His remarkable influence.--Other schoolfellows.
--Story of a boat.--A swimming adventure.--Our walks and battles.

The love of literature was naturally followed by some early attempts at
versification in English, which is generally looked upon as a silly
waste of time in a boy, though if he writes Latin verses, which we were
taught to do, he is thought to be seriously occupied. Prom the age of
eleven to that of twenty-one I wrote English verses very frequently, and
am now very glad I did so, being quite convinced that it was a most
profitable exercise in the language. My early verses were invariably
echoes of my dearly beloved Sir Walter Scott, a master whom it is not
very difficult to imitate so far as mere versification is concerned. One
little incident about this early verse-making is worth mentioning in
this place. I was staying for a few days with a school-fellow at a house
near Doncaster, when I dreamed a new ballad about a shipwreck, and on
awaking wrote it down at once. The thing would not be worth quoting, if
it were possible to remember it; but it was correct enough in rhymes and
metre.

My life at Doncaster was not on the whole unhappy, and the steady
discipline of the school was doing me much good. Mr. Cape was a very
severe master, and he used the cane very freely; but to a boy who had
lived under the tyranny of my father Mr. Cape's severity seemed a light
affliction. He kept up his dignity by seldom appearing in the