1817 22. LOVE FOR POETRY. 15 



Cowper, Henry Kirke White became an early favourite ; and by 

 and by, Felicia Hemans' ' Eecords of Woman' was added to our 

 library, and read aloud amongst us ; and even select passages 

 from Milton's ' Paradise Lost' were rendered pleasant to very 

 youthful ears by our mother's feeling and expressive mode of 

 reading and commenting on them. Thus a taste was formed at 

 an unusually early age for poetry, which by and by, when faci- 

 lities for reading increased, made us familiar with Moore, Byron, 

 Southey, Coleridge, Shelley, and Scott ; and then, in preference 

 to all of them, with Shakspere : from which it followed that 

 there was pretty soon writing as well as reading of verse, and 

 sundry juvenile poems, long since burnt and forgotten, were 

 produced, though I shall by and by refer to others, preserved in 

 later years. The theme of one ambitious effusion, extending to 

 some hundreds of heroic couplets, was, I remember, ' Woman !' 

 and doubtless embodied some very fresh and original views on 

 the subject. 



" At Mr. Knight's school some of the most lasting of George's 

 early friendships were formed. Dr. Philip W. Maclagan, K.N., 

 now of Berwick ; Dr. John Alexander Smith, of Edinburgh ; 

 Mr. Philip Dassauville ; Dr. John Knight, and others who 

 passed with us to the High School, were already favourite 

 companions ; and it was from among these, with the addition 

 of Mr. William Nelson, the Rev. James Huie, now minister 

 at Wooler, Northumberland, Messrs. Alexander and James 

 Sprunt, with one or two others, that, in 1828-29, a 'Juvenile 

 Society for the Advancement of Knowledge ' was formed. The 

 Society met weekly at our father's house, where already we had 

 a room of our own, with our books and natural history speci- 

 mens, out of which was now formed the museum of the Society. 

 A glazed book- case, provided with the requisite shelving, held 

 the accumulating stores ; and as everything had to be done with 

 as solemn dignity as the Eoyal Society itself possibly could as- 

 sume, we, amongst other becoming proceedings, adopted a coat 



with the motto, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' still in existence? If so, and n 

 medallion is procurable, please remember a man who dropped taking sugar in his 

 tea when seven years old, as a protest against slavery, and has never taken it since 

 in tea, though I am sorry to say the inconsistent philosopher never abandoned its use 

 in puddings and other viands."- --May 10, 1857. 



