A particular friend of mine, who, when a young man, had a great propensity to fall in love and make verses accordingly, has often told me his whole progress in both, and says positively that he should ascertain in a moment a man’s decimal from his versification. He entertained me one morning by showing me certain memorandums which he had from time to time made upon this subject, and from which he permitted me to take extracts, as also from some of his own effusions which he said he had kept out of curiosity.
It appears that at the age of fifteen he fell in love with a Miss Lyddy St. John, who was herself a poetess of fourteen, and the most delicate young Celestial he had ever seen. The purity of her thoughts and verses filtered all his sentiments as clear as spring water, and did not leave an atom of grossness in the whole body of them.
Before he left school he wrote the following lines on this young lady, which he has suffered to stand as the poetical illustration of his boyhood:
I.
What sylph that flits athwart the air,
Or hovers round its favourite fair,
Can paint such charms to fancy’s eye,
Or feebly trace
The unconscious grace
Of her for whom I sigh?