with him, and indifference was gradually converted into repugnance; yet he allowed' himself no voluntary neglect; and in the office surpassed every other clerk in the celerity and correctness of his transcripts; but as he had the faculty of abstracting his thoughts from the parchment submitted to his pen, he perpetually digressed to ideas unconnected with business, and by this mental evasion completely frustrated the object for which he had been placed in a solicitor's office. Unfortunately, the sacrifice of his worldly interests was without advantage to his literary pursuits. So many hours were consumed in a superficial devotion to business, that no leisure remained for any regular plan of study, or enlarged views of mental improvement. Left to himself, he contracted a taste for desultory reading. His early predilection for satire was confirmed by the conversation of professional associates; and thus was he led to waste his time and talents in ungraceful efforts to lash the vices and follies of the age. To this circumstance must it be imputed that during the first years of his residence in London he produced so little poetry worthy even of his juvenile pen. To those who desire to trace the germs of literary talent, the following verses, composed in or before 1788, may be acceptable. Epitaph on Maria P. A prey to grief and pain no more, Whose virtue could no higher soar, Whose beauty could no sweeter bloom. Heaven viewed with care its darling pride, Left her awhile to sweeten here, Then snatch'd her for the realm of bliss. At morn, in pride of youth, she shone, At eve, she withered, pale and wan, To hail this bright auspicious day, That praise which vicious deeds would shame: Be pregnant with some future bliss ; Nor rack'd with pain nor craz'd with care. And when the cankʼring hand of time may each year, And when the shell no longer blooms, The following extract from a cotemporaneous poem is in a better strain, and exhibits the rudiments of the author's dramatic blank verse. The hero of this piece is an unfortunate man who languishes in prison by the fiat of a remorseless creditor. After an exordium, in which he feelingly reproves the careless sons of luxury, he thus apostrophizes the author of his calamity. And thou, presumptuous wretch! whose iron soul From harmony's full choir ; an eye as keen Or skim o'er nature's variegated hues, Till fancy surfeits on the fairy scene Herself has drawn. Thinkest thou yon bed of sweets Sheds not as sweet a perfume to my sense As e'er it did to thine; or that yon board, With daintiest viands spread, with equal zest Regales not him that murmurs in this cell? Yon shiv'ring wretch, That wears the ragged livery of woe, The lilly's sick'ning bloom, whose famish'd sense And luxury's scant gleanings, oft withheld For she has chronicled each hour of woe, When wildest raged the storm, and the rude wind Beneath whose brow she brav'd the batt'ring storm, And thou, fair village, 'erst my fond retreat, When hope spun fair her glitt'ring web of joy In fancy's loom, to cheat the roving eye |