HABITS OP MILTON. 



179 



change the tone of her voice before 

 she could rouse him. 



" When he was about seven, he 

 would creep unperceived into the 

 kitchen, to teach the servant to 

 read and write ; and he continued 

 this for some time before it was 

 discovered that he had been thus 

 laudably employed. 



" He wrote a tale of a Swiss emi- 

 grant, which was probably his first 

 composition, and gave it to this 

 servant, being ashamed to show it 

 to his mother." " The conscious- 

 ness of genius," says Mr. Southey, 

 "is always at first accompanied 

 with this diffidence ; it is a sacred, 

 solitary feeling. No forward child, 

 however extraordinary the promise 

 of his childhood, ever produced 

 anything truly great." 



When Henry was about eleven 

 years old, he one day wrote a sepa- 

 rate theme for every boy in his 

 class, which consisted of about 

 twelve or fourteen. The master 

 said he had never known them 

 write so well upon any subject be- 

 fore, and could not refrain from 

 expressing his astonishment at the 

 excellence of Henry's own. At the 

 age of thirteen he wrote a poem, 

 " On being confined to School one 

 pleasant Morning in Spring," from 

 which the following is an extract : 



" How gladly would my soul forego 

 Ail that arithmeticians know, 

 Or stiff grammarians quaintly teach, 

 Or all that industry can reach, 

 To tasto each morn of all tho joys 

 That with the laughing sun ari.se, 

 And unconstrained to rove along 

 The bushy brakes and glens among, 

 And woo the Muse's gentle power, 

 In unfrequented rural bower ! 

 But ah I such heaven-approachin 



joys 



Will never greet my longing eyes ; 

 Still will they cheat in vision tine, 

 Yet never but in iancy shine." 



The parents of Henry were an- 

 xious to put him to some trade ; 

 and when he was in his fourteenth 

 y ITU- ho was placed at a stocking- 

 loom, with the view, at some future 



period, of getting a situation in a 

 iiosier's warehouse ; but the youth 

 did not conceive that nature in- 

 tended to doom him to spend seven 

 years of his life in folding up stock- 

 ings, and he remonstrated with his 

 friends against the employment. 



Young White was soon removed 

 from the stocking-loom to the office 

 of a solicitor, which was a less ob- 

 noxious employment. He became 

 a member of a literary society in 

 Nottingham, and delivered an ex- 

 tempore lecture on genius ; in 

 which he displayed so much talent 

 that he received the unanimous 

 thanks of the society, and they 

 elected this young Koscius of ora- 

 tory their professor of literature. 

 At the age of fifteen he gained a 

 silver medal for a translation from 

 Horace ; and the following year a 

 pair of globes, for an imaginary 

 tour from London to Edinburgh. 

 He determined upon trying for this 

 prize one evening when at tea with 

 his family ; and at supper he read 

 to them his performance. 



In his seventeenth year he pub- 

 lished a small volume of poems, 

 which possessed considerable merit. 

 Soon after, he was sent to Cam- 

 bridge, and entered at St. John's 

 College, where he made the most 

 rapid progress. But the intensity 

 of his studies ruined his constitu- 

 tion, and he fell a victim to his ar- 

 dent thirst for knowledge. He 

 died about two years after, aged 

 twenty-one, leaving behind him 

 several poems and letters, which 

 gave earnest of the high 'rank he 

 would have attained in the republic 

 of letters had his life been spared. 



HABITS OF MILTON. 



He arose at four in the morning ; 

 had some one to read the Bible to 

 him for about half an hour; con- 

 templated till seven ; read and wrote 

 until dinner; walked, or swung, 

 and played music three or four 

 hours; entertained visitors until 



