28 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



moment by the real object, a shrivelled and blackened 

 little thing composed by the ingenuity of some rascally 

 Japanese fisherman out of the head and shoulders of a 

 monkey and the body and tail of a salmon. It was in the 

 year 1826 that Philip made his first debut in the world of 

 letters, in a very humble way. He composed a little 

 article on "The Mouse a Lover of Music," and sent it to 

 the editor of the Youths Magazine. It was usual, in those 

 days, to get the local M.P., so far as his good nature ex- 

 tended, to frank your letters, and the boy appeared early 

 at the door of Mr. Lester, the member for Poole. He 

 had addressed the envelope to the publishers, "Messrs. 

 Hamilton, Adams, and Co. ; " the footman, as he took it 

 in, misread the " Messrs." for " Miss," and benevolently 

 smiling, rallied the lad on its being " for his young lady." 

 The member franked it, however, and in due time, to the 

 inexpressible joy of its author, "The Mouse a Lover of 

 Music " appeared, signed QiXnr, in the pages of the Youth's 

 Magazine. 



One day, in 1826, he had a narrow escape from death 

 by drowning. Standing at the edge of the quay just 

 behind his employers' business premises, he suddenly 

 slipped down between the quay and one of Garlands' 

 brigs which was anchored there. By an extraordinary 

 good fortune he fell astride a spar which happened to be 

 lashed alongside at that point, acting as a " fender," and 

 he was hoisted up again, jarred and terrified, but unhurt, 

 having escaped the death of a rat by a mere hand-breadth. 

 A further stage in his imaginative susceptibility was marked 

 this year by his enjoyment of Campbell's Last Man, then 

 recently published in the New Monthly Magazine. He 

 thought it very noble, as indeed it is, but in making copies 

 of it for his friends he must needs, an infant Bentley, be 



