him by his uncle, Bishop Reynolds. He was in the commission of the peace, and a very active magistrate in the reconcilement of parties, rather than in the commitment of persons: in those quiet parts offences were in general trivial, and the differences merely such as an attorney could contrive to hook a suit upon, so that with a very little legal knowledge, and a very hospitable generous disposition, my father rarely failed to put contentious spirits to peace by reference to the kitchen and the cellar. In the mean time, his popularity rose in proportion as his beer-barrels sunk, and as often as he made peace he made friends, till, I may say without exaggeration, he had all men's good word in his favor and their services at his command. In the mean time, such was the orderly behavior and good discipline of his own immediate flock, that I have frequently heard him say he never once had occasion during his long residence amongst them to issue his warrant within the precincts of his own happy village, which being seated between the more populous and less correct parishes of Raunds and Higham-Ferrers, he used appositely to call Little Zoar, but made no further allusions to the evil neighborhood of Zoar.

In this peaceful spot, with parents so affectionate, I was the happiest of beings in my breakings-up from school. Those delightful scenes are fresh in my remembrance, and when I have occasionally revisited them, since the decease of objects ever so dear to me, the sensations they have excited are not for me to describe. I had inherited an excellent constitution, and, though not robust in make, was more than commonly adroit in my athletic exercises. In swiftness of foot for a short distance no boy in Bury School could match me, and, when at Cambridge, I gave a general challenge to the collegians, which was decided in Trinity Walks in my favor.

Those field sports, of which the young and active are naturally so fond, I enjoyed by my father's favor, in perfection, and in my winter holidays constantly went out with him upon his hunting days, and was always admirably mounted. He was light and elegant in his person, and had in his early youth kept horses and rode matches at Newmarket after the example of his elder brother; but though his profession had now put a stop to those levities, he shared in a pack of hariers with a neighboring gentleman, and was a bold and excellent rider. In my first attendances upon him to the field, the joys of hunting scarcely compensated for the terrors I sometimes felt in following him against my will upon a racing galloway, which he had purchased of old Panton, and whose attachment to her leader was such as left me no option as to the pace I would wish to go, or

MY MOTHER'S INSTRUCTIONS.

35

the leaps I would avoid to take. At length, when age added strength and practice gave address, falls became familiar to me, and I left both fear and prudence behind me in the pleasures of the chase.

It was in these intervals from school that my mother began to form both my taste and my ear for poetry, by employing me every evening to read to her, of which art she was a very able mistress. Our readings were, with very few exceptions, confined to the chosen plays of Shakspeare, whom she both admired and understood in the true spirit and sense of the author. Under her instruction I became passionately fond of these our evening entertainments; in the mean time she was attentive to model my recitation, and correct my manner with exact precision. Her comments and illustrations were such aids and instructions to a pupil in poetry as few could have given. What I could not else have understood she could aptly explain, and what I ought to admire and feel nobody could more happily select and recommend. I well remember the care she took to mark out for my observation the peculiar excellence of that unrivalled poet in the consistency and preservation of his characters; and wherever instances occurred amongst the starts and sallies of his unfettered fancy of the extravagant and false sublime, her discernment oftentimes prevented me from being so dazzled by the glitter of the period as to misapply my admiration, and betray my want of taste. With all her father's critical acumen she could trace, and teach me to unravel, all the meanders of his metaphor, and point out where it illuminated, or where it only loaded and obscured the meaning; these were happy hours and interesting lectures to me, whilst my beloved father, ever placid and complacent, sate beside us, and took part in our amusement: his voice was never heard but in the tone of approbation; his countenance never marked but with the natural traces of his indelible and hereditary benevolence.

The effect of these readings was exactly that which was naturally to be foreseen. I began to try my strength in several slight attempts towards the drama, and as Shakspeare was most upon my tongue and nearest to my heart, I fitted and compiled a kind of cento, which I intitled 'Shakspeare in the Shades,' and formed into one act, selecting the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia, Romeo and Juliet, Lear and Cordelia, as the persons of my drama, and giving to Shakspeare, who is present throughout the piece, Ariel, as an attendant spirit, and taking for the motto to my title page

I should premise that I was now at the head of Bury School, though only in my twelfth year, and not very slightly grounded in the Greek and Latin classics there taught.

The scene is laid in Elysium, where the poet is discovered, and opens the drama with the following address:

'Most fair and equal hearers, know that whilst this soul inhabited its fleshly tabernacle, I was called Shakspeare; a greater name and more exalted honors have dignified its dissolution. Blest with a liberal portion of the divine spirit, as a tribute due to the bounty of the gods, I left behind me an immortal monument of my fame. Think not that I boast; the actions of departed beings may not be censured by any mortal wit, nor are accountable to any earthly tribunal. Let it suffice that in the grave

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil

all envy and detraction, all pride and vain-glory are no more; still, a grateful remembrance of humanity, and a tender regard for our posterity on earth follow us to this happy seat; and it is in this regard I deign once more to salute you with my favored presence, and am content to be again an actor for your sakes. I have been attentive to your sufferings at my mournful scenes; guardian of that virtue, which I left in distress, I come now, the instrument of Providence, to compose your sorrows, and restore to it the proportioned reward. Those bleeding characters, those martyred worthies, whom I have sent untimely to the shades, shall now, at length, and in your sight, be crowned with their beloved retribution, and the justice, which as their poet I withheld from them, as the arbiter and disposer of their fate, I will award to them; but for the villain and the adulterer

The perjured and the simular man of virtue

the proud, the ambitious, and the murderer, I shall

Leave such to heaven,

And to those thorns, that in their bosoms lodge
To prick and sting them.—

But soft! I see one coming, that often hath beguiled you of your tears-the
fair Ophelia'

The several parties now make their respective appeals, and
Shakspeare finally summons them all before him by his agent
Ariel, for whose introduction he prepares the audience by the
following soliloquy—

'Now comes the period of my high commission:
All have been heard, and all shall be restor❜d,
All errors blotted out and all obstructions,

Mortality entails, shall be remov'd,

And from the mental eye the film withdrawn,
Which in its corporal union had obscur'd
And clouded the pure virtue of its sight.
But to these purposes I must employ

My ready spirit, Ariel, some time minister

To Prospero, and the obsequious slave

Of his enchantments, from whose place preferr'd
He here attends to do me services,

3

SHAKSPEARE IN THE SHADES.

And qualifies these beings for Elysium—
Hoa! Ariel, approach my dainty spirit!'

(ARIEL enters.)

All hail, great master, grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be it to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curled clouds-to thy strong-bidding task
Ariel and all his qualities-

SHAKSPEARE.

Know then, spirit,

Into this grove six shades consign'd to bliss
I've separately remov'd, of each sex three;
Unheard of one another and unseen
There they abide, yet each to each endear'd
By ties of strong affection: not the same
Their several objects, though the effects alike,
But husband, father, lover make the change.
Now though the body's perish'd, yet are they
Fresh from their sins and bleeding with their wrongs;
Therefore all sense of injury remove,

Heal up their wounded faculties anew,

And pluck affliction's arrow from their hearts;

Refine their passions, for gross sensual love
Let it become a pure and faultless friendship,
Raise and confirm their joys, let them exchange
Their fleeting pleasures for immortal peace :

This done, with speed conduct them each to other
So chang'd, and set the happy choir before me.'

37

I have the whole of this puerile production, written in a schoolboy's hand, which by some chance has escaped the general wreck, in which I have lost some records, that I should now be glad to resort to. I am not quite sure that I act fairly by my readers when I give any part of it a place in these memoirs, yet as an instance of the impression, which my mother's lectures had made upon my youthful fancy, and perhaps as a sample of composition indicative of more thought and contrivance, than are commonly to be found in boys at so very early an age, I shall proceed to transcribe the concluding part of the scene, in which Romeo has his audience, and can truly affirm that the copy is faithful without the alteration or addition of a single word:

ROMEO.

-O thou, the great disposer of my fate,
Judge of my actions, patron of my cause,
Tear not asunder such united hearts,
But give me up to love and my Juliet.

SHAKSPEARE.

'Unthinking youth, thou dost forget thyself;

Rash inconsiderate boy, must I again

Remind thee of thy fate? What! know'st thou not
The man, whose desperate hand foredoes himself,

Is doom'd to wander on the Stygian shore

A restless shade, forlorn and comfortless,

For a whole age? Nor shall he hope to soothe
The callous ear of Charon, till he win

His passion by repentance and submission

At this my fixed tribunal, else be sure
The wretch shall hourly pace the lazy wharf
To view the beating of the Stygian wave,
And waste his irksome leisure.'

Gracious powers,

ROMEO.

Is this my doom, my torment-? Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and each unworthy thing
Lives here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not: more validity,
More honorable state, more worship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo; they may seize
On the white wonder of my love's dear hand,
And steal immortal blessings from her lips,
But Romeo may not; 'He is doom'd to bear
An age's pain and sigh in banishment,
To drag a restless being on the shore

Of gloomy Styx, and weep into the flood,
Till, with his tears made full, the briny stream'
Shall kiss the most exalted shores of all.

SHAKSPEARE.

'Now then dost thou repent thy follies past?

. ROMEO.

'Oh, ask me if I feel my torments present,
Then judge if I repent my follies past.
Had I but powers to tell you what I feel,

A tongue to speak my heart's unfeign'd contrition,
Then might I lay the bleeding part before you;
But 'twill not be-something I yet would say
To extenuate my crime; fain would plead
The merit of my love-but I have done-
However hard my sentence, I submit.

My faithless tongue turns traitor to my heart,
And will not utter what it fondly prompts;

A rising gust of passion drowns my voice,

And I'm most dumb when I've most need to sue.

SHAKSPEARE.

'Arise, young sir! before my mercy-seat

None kneel in vain; repentance never lost
The cause she pleaded. Mercy is the proof,
The test that marks a character divine;

Were ye like merciful to one another,

(Kneels.)

The earth would be a heaven and men the gods.
Withdraw awhile; I see thy heart is full;

Grief at a crime committed merits more

Than exultation for a duty done.

(ROMEO withdraws.)