46 HOPE. 



of this his daily labour, lie had taken hours, which should 

 have been of rest, for independent composition. One poem, a 

 ponderous epic, with his name on the title-page, had already 

 been sent abroad into the world ; but it had gone forth, like 

 its author, unfriended, ill drest, patron wanting, paper and 

 printing paltry. Its reception was accordant ; if H had 

 thrown a stone out of his garret window, the passing multi- 

 tude (at least if it had fallen harmless as his poem) could only 

 have trodden on or over it the same. Yet was he still san- 

 guine and would still believe that his neglected work, stone- 

 like, as he proudly fancied, in solid merit, might one day serve 

 for a pedestal whereon his laurelled statue might be planted. 

 But few are the pedestals formed of a single stone. To com-' 

 plete his, he must, he thought, lay one upon another ; so 

 lighted to his labour by the flicker of hope's torch and the 

 flare of tallow candle, he went on working (blockhead as he 

 was !) through many a fireless winter's night at another pon- 

 derous block of literature a second epic poem. 



Eough-hewn, thus, in winter, he had carved on it, in spring, 

 new forms of his creative imagination; summer had been 

 employed on their adornment, and with the summer's last roses 

 he had bestowed the last flowery touches on his darling work. 



It was the afternoon of a sultry first of August ; " magazine 

 day " just over, the hireling had got a respite from his daily 

 drudgery. He had employed it on the favourite labour of his 

 brain ; but that was ended, his epic was actually completed, even 



