nacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.

"Hitherto I had not so much as dreamed of poetry: indeed, I scarcely knew it by name; and whatever may be said of the force of nature, I certainly never lisp'd in numbers.' I recollect the occasion of my first attempt; it is, like all the rest of my non-adventures, of so unimportant a nature, that I should blush to call the attention of the idlest reader to it, but for the reason alleged in the introduetory paragraph. A person, whose name escapes me, had undertaken to paint a sign for an ale-house: it was to have been a lion, but the unfortunate artist produced a dog. On this awkward affair, one of my acquaintance wrote a copy of what we called verse: I liked it, but fancied that I could compose something more to the purpose. I nade the experiment, and by the unanimous suffrage of my shopinates, was allowed to have succeeded. Notwithstanding this encouragement, I thought no more of verse till another occurrence, as trifling as the former, furnished me with a fresh subject; and thus I went on, till I had got together about a dozen of them. Certainly, nothing on earth was so deplorable; such as they were, however, they were talked of in my little circle, and I was sometimes invited to repeat thein, even out of it. I never conimitted a line to paper for two reasons-first, because I had no paper; and secondly-perhaps I might be excused from going further; but, in truth, I was afraid, as my master had already threatened me, for inadvertently hitching the name of one of his customers into a rhyme.

"The repetitions of which I speak were always attended with applause, and sometimes with favours more substantial: little collections were now and then made, and I have received sixpence in an evening. To one who had long lived in the absolute want of money, such a resource seemed a Peruvian mine: I furnished myself by degrees with paper, &c. and, what was of more importance, with books of geometry and of the higher branches of algebra, which I cautiously conceal

ed. Poetry, even at this time, was no amusement of mine: it was subservient to other purposes; and I only had recourse to it, when I wanted money for my mathematical pursuits. But the clouds were gathering fast. My

master's anger was raised to a terrible pitch by my indifference to his concerns, and still more by the reports that were daily brought to him of my presumptuous attempts at versification. I was required to give up my papers, and when I refused, my garret was searched, my little hoard of books discovered and removed, and all future repetitions prohibited in the strictest manner.

"This was a very severe stroke, and I felt it most sensibly; it was followed by another severer still, -a stroke which crushed the hopes I had so long and so fondly cherished, and resigned me at once to despair. Mr. Hugh Smerdon, on whose succession I had calculated, died, and was succeeded by a person not much older than myself, and certainly not so well qualified for the situation.

"In this humble and obscure state, poor beyond the common lot, yet flattering my ambition with day-dreams, which, perhaps would never have been realized, I was found, in the twentieth year of my age, by Mr. William Cookesley-a name never to be pronounced by me without veneration. The lamentable doggerel which I have already mentioned, and which had passed from mouth to mouth among people of my own degree, had, by some accident or other, reached his ear, and given him a curiosity to inquire after the author.

"It was my good fortune to interest his benevolence. My little history was not untinctured with melancholy, and I laid it fairly before him. His first care was to console; his second, which he cherished to the last moment of his existence, was to relieve and support me.

"Mr. Cookesley was not rich; his eminence in his profession, which was that of a surgeon, procured him, indeed, much employment; but in a country town, men of science are not the most liberally rewarded: he had, besides, a very numerous family, which left him little for the purposes of general benevolence; that little, however, was cheerfully bestowed, and his activity and zeal were always at hand to supply the deficiencies of his for

tune.

Through the kindness of Mr. Cookesley, a subscription was raised, "for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford; and for enabling him to improve himself in writing

boat alarmed the man on deck, who came to the ship's side just in time to see me sink. He immediately threw out several ropes, one of which providentially (for 1 was unconscious of it,) intangled itself about me, and I was drawn up to the surface, till a boat could be got round. The usual methods were taken to recover me, and I awoke in bed the next morning, remembering nothing but the horror I felt, when I first found myself unable to cry out for assistance. This was not my only escape, but I forbear to speak of them. An escape of another kind was preparing for me."

This was an alteration in the conduct of his godfather, who, to allay a murmuring which had arisen amongst the townspeople, had now determined to recal him from his degraded situation, and restore him to school. This, as he wanted some months of fourteen, and was not yet bound apprentice, was easily effected; and "my heart," he continues, "which had been cruelly shut up, now opened to kinder sentiments, and fairer views."

"After the holidays I returned to my darling pursuit, arithmetic: my progress was now so rapid, that in a few months I was at the head of the school, and qualified to assist my master, Mr. E. Foulong, on any extraordinary emergency. As he usually gave me a trifle on those occasions, it raised a thought in me, that, by engaging with him as a regular assistant, and undertaking the instruction of a few evening scholars, I might, with a little additional aid, be enabled to support myself. God knows, my ideas of support at this time were of no very extravagant nature. I had, besides, another object in view. Mr. Hugh Smerdon, my first Master, was now grown old and infirm; it seemed unlikely that he should hold out above three or four years; and I fondly flattered myself that, notwithstanding my youth, I might possibly be appointed to succeed him. I was in my fifteenth year, when I built these castles. A storm, however, was collecting, which unexpectedly burst upon me, and swept them all away.

On mentioning my little plan to Carlisle, he treated it with the utmost contempt; and told me, that, as I had learned enough at school, he must be considered as having fairly discharged his duty; he added, that he had been

negotiating with his cousin, a shoemaker of some respectability, who had liberally agreed to take me without a fee, as an apprentice. I was so shocked at this intelligence, that I did not remonstrate; but went in sullenness and si lence to my new master, to whom was soon after bound, till I should at tain the age of twenty-one.

"As I hated my new profession with a perfect hatred, I made no progress in it; and was consequently little regarded in the family, of which I sunk by degrees into the common drudge this did not much disquiet me, for my spirits were now humbled. I did not, however, quite resign the hope of one day succeeding to Mr. Hugh Smerdon, and therefore secretly prosecuted my favourite study, at every interval of leisure. These intervals were not very frequent; and when the use I made of them was found out, they were rendered still less so. 1 could not guess the motives for this at first; but at length I discovered that my Master destined his youngest son for the situation to which I aspired.

"I possessed at this time but one book in the world: it was a treatise on Algebra, given to me by a young woman, who had found it in a lodg ing-house. I considered it as a treasure; but it was a treasure locked up; for it supposed the reader to be well acquainted with simple equation, and I knew nothing of the matter. My master's son had purchased Fenning's Introduction: this was precisely what I wanted; but he carefully concealed it from me, and I was indebted to chance alone for stumbling upon his hiding-place. I sat up for the greatest part of several nights successively, and before he suspected that his treatise was discovered, had completely mastered it. I could now enter upon my own; and that carried me pretty far into the science. This was not done without difliculty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one; pen, ink, and paper, there fore, (in despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford,) were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach as 4 crown and sceptre. There was, indeed, a resource; but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest, my memory was te

and English grammar."-Sufficient was thus collected for purchasing the eighteen months which remained of his apprenticeship, and for maintaining the youthful genius for a few months, during which he assiduously attended the Rev. Thomas Smerdon.

"At the expiration of this period, it was found that my progress (for I will speak the truth in modesty) had been more considerable than my patrons expected. I had also written in the interim several little pieces of poetry, less rugged, I suppose, than my former ones; and certainly with fewer anomalies of language. My precep tor, too, spoke favourably of me; and my benefactor, who was now become my father and my friend, had little difficulty in persuading my patrons to renew their donations, and continue me at school for another year. Such liberality was not lost upon me; I grew anxious to make the best return in my power, and I redoubled my diligence. Now, that I am sunk into indolence, I look back with some degree of scepticisin to the exertions of that period.

"In two years and two months from the day of my emancipation, I was pronounced by Mr. Smerdon fit for the University; and Mr. Cookesley looked round for some one who had interest enough to procure me some little office at Oxford. This person, who was soon found, was Thomas Taylor, esq. of Denbury, a gentleman to whom I had already been indebted for much liberal and friendly support. He procured me the place of Bib. Lect. at Exeter College; and this, with such occasional assistance from the country as Mr. Cookesley undertook to provide, was thought sufficient to enable me to live, at least till I had taken a degree.

"During my attendance on Mr. Smerdon I had written, as I observed before, several tuneful trifles, some as exercises, others voluntarily, (for poetry was now become my delight,) and not a few at the desire of my friends. When I became capable, however, of reading Latin and Greek with some degree of facility, that gentleman employed all my leisure hours in translations from the classics; and indeed I scarcely know a single school-book of which I did not render some portion into English verse. Among others, JUVENAL engaged my attention, or rather my master's, and I translated

the Tenth Satire for a holiday task. Mr. Smerdon was much pleased with this, (I was not undelighted with it myself,) and as I was now become fond of the author, he easily persuaded me to proceed with him; and I translated in succession the Third, the Fourth, the Twelfth, and, I think, the Eighth Satires. As I had no end in view but that of giving a temporary satisfaction to my benefactors, I thought little more of these, than of many other things of the same nature, which I wrote from time to time, and of which I never copied a single line.

66

On my removing to Exeter College, however, my friend, ever attentive to my concerns, advised me to copy my translation of the Tenth Satire, and present it, on my arrival, to the Rev. Dr. Stinton (afterwards Rector), to whom Mr. Taylor had given me an introductory letter. I did so, and it was kindly received. Thus encouraged, I took up the First and Second Satires, (I mention them in the order they were translated,) when my friend, who had sedulously watched my progress, first started the idea of going through the whole, and publishing it by subscription, as a scheme for increasing my means of subsistance. To this readily acceded, and finished the Thirteenth, Eleventh, and Fifteenth Satires; the remainder were a work of a much later period. When I had got thus far, we thought it a fit time to mention our design; it was very generally approved of by my friends; and on the first of January, 1781, the subscription was opened by Mr. Cookesley at Ashburton, and by myself at Exeter College.

"So bold an undertaking so precipitately announced, will give the reader, I fear, a higher opinion of my conceit than of my talents; neither the one nor the other, however, had the smallest concern with the business, which originated solely in ignorance: I wrote verses with great facility, and was simple enough to imagine that little more was necessary for a translator of Juvenal! I was not, indeed, unconscious of my inaccuracies: I knew that they were numerous, and that I had need of some friendly eye to point them out, and some judicious hand to rectify or remove them: but for these, as well as for every thing else, I looked to Mr. Cookesley, and that worthy man, with his usual alacrity of kindness, under

took the laborious task of revising the whole translation. My friend was no great Latinist, perhaps I was the better of the two; but he had taste and judgment, which I wanted. What advantages might have been ultimately derived from them, there was unhappily no opportunity of ascertaining, as it pleased the Almighty to call him to himself by a sudden death, before we had quite finished the First Satire. He died with a letter of mine, unopened, in his hands.

"This event, which took place on the 10th of January, 1781, afflicted me beyond measure. I was not only deprived of a most faithful and affectionate friend, but of a zealous and ever active protector, on whom I confidently relied for support: the sums that were still necessary for me, he always collected; and it was to be feared that the assistance which was not solicited with warinth, would insensibly cease to be afforded.

"In many instances this was actually the case. The desertion, however, was not general; and I was encouraged to hope, by the unexpected friendship of Servington Savery, a gentleman who voluntarily stood forth as my patron, and watched over my interest with kindness and attention.

"Some time before Mr. Cookesley's death, we had agreed that it would be proper to deliver out, with the terms of subscription, a specimen of the manner in which the translation was executed. To obviate any idea of selection, a sheet was accordingly taken from the beginning of the First Satire. My friend died while it was in the press.

"After a few melancholy weeks, I resumed the translation; but found myself utterly incapable of proceeding. I had been so accustomed to connect the name of Mr. Cookesley with every part of it, and I laboured with such delight in the hope of giving him pleasure, that now, when he appeared to have left me in the midst of my enterprize, and I was abandoned to my own efforts, I seemed to be engaged in a hopeless struggle, without motive or end and this idea, which was perpetually recurring to me, brought such bitter anguish with it, that I shut up the work with feelings bordering on distraction!

"To relieve my mind, I had recourse to other pursuits. I endeavoured to

become more intimately acquainted with the classics, and to acquire some of the modern languages: by permission too, or rather recommendation, of the Rector and Fellows, I also undertook the care of a few pupils."

On returning, after the lapse of many months, to his Juvenal, Mr. Gifford "discovered, for the first time, that my own experience, and the advice of my too, too partial friend, had engaged me in a work for the due execution of which my literary attainments were by no means sufficient." Seeing, therefore, the necessity of a long and painful revision, which would have carried him far beyond the time fixed for the appearance of the volume, he resolved to renounce the publication for the present. In pursuance of this resolution, much of the subscription-money was returned; but he still secretly determined to complete the work, and to illustrate it with notes, which he "now perceived to be absolutely necessary.' At this crisis his views were entirely changed by his accidental introduction to Lord Grosvenor, which he thus describes :

"I had contracted an acquaintance with [the Rev. William Peters, R.A.] recommended to my particular notice by a gentleman of Devonshire, whom I was proud of an opportunity to oblige. This person's residence at Oxford was not long, and when he returned to town, I maintained a correspondence with him by letters. At his particular request, these were enclosed in covers, and sent to Lord Grosvenor. One day I inadvertently omitted the direction, and his Lordship, necessarily supposing the letter to be meant for himself, opened and read it. There was something in it which attracted his notice; and when he gave it to my friend, he had the curiosity to inquire about his correspondent at Oxford, and, upon the answer he received, the kindness to desire that he might be brought to see him upon his coming to town. To this circumstance, purely accidental on all sides, and to this alone, I owe my introduction to that nobleman.

"On my first visit, he asked me what friends I had, and what were my prospects in life; and I told him that I had no friends, and no prospects of any kind. He said no more: but when I called to take leave, previous to returning to college, I found that this simple exposure of my circumstances