suffered the paternal mansion to fall into a state of ruin; and, as far as lay in his power, he alienated the lands which should have kept it in repair. Eccentricity, indeed, seems to have distinguished the whole blood; for his sister Isabella, late Countess of Carlisle, and mother of the present earl, was a woman of singular genius, and as singular habits. She wrote a charming copy of verses, addressed to Mrs. Greville, on her "Ode to Indifference," which, with other poetical effusions of her ladyship's pen, are in Pearch's collection. After shining for a long period in the circle of fashion as one of its most lively and fascinating luminaries, she suddenly retired, and in a manner shut herself up from the world; which made the late Mr. Fox, in one of his sportive productions, characterize her severely enough, as

"Carlisle recluse in pride and rags."

Of the talents of her son the public has long possessed ample proofs, in a volume of poems, and the nervous tragedy of "The Father's Revenge ;" which last was submitted to the judgment of Dr. Johnson, a little before his death, and received his approbation.

But to return to the immediate subject of these Memoirs. His infant years, from the age of two to

ten, were spent at the birth-place of his mother, and under her personal care; which was of so lenient and indulgent a cast, that perhaps much of the irregularity which has marked his progress through life, may be ascribed to the want of early restraint, and seasonable discipline. A mal-formation of one of his feet, and other indications of a rickety constitution, served as a plea for suffering him to range the hills, and to wander about at his pleasure on the sea-shore, that his frame might be invigorated by air and exercise. But if much was gained in bodily strength, it was at the expense of mental cultivation; and this early custom of roaming at will, became a confirmed habit, and a disposition impatient of controul.

When the right to the family honours was determined, and the young minor became a ward under the guardianship of his relation, the Earl of Carlisle, an order was made for his removal to an English seminary, that he might have an education suited to his rank. Harrow was pitched upon, and thither he was sent, towards the close of the year 1798. The re

HARROW SCHOOL.

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strictions of a well-regulated school were seriously felt by one who had never before experienced the least abridgement of his freedoom, and whose desires had always been gratified to such a degree that to him even the language of authority was hardly known. A mind so ill prepared for the trammels of education, could not easily be brought into a state of conformity with the established regulations of the institution; and though the usual exercises were correctly performed, it was with reluctance and an avowed hatred both to the task and the authority by which it was enforced. That he did not acquire a classical taste at this celebrated seat of the Muses, where Jones and Sheridan first tried their powers, is certain, for we have his own testimony to the fact. The fourth canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" contains a bitter anathema against the use of the Latin poets in schools, followed by a long note upon the same subject. The lines, which possess neither strength nor harmony, are these:

May he who will, his recollections rake

And quote in classic raptures, and awake

The hills with Latian echoes: I abhorr'd

Too much to conquer, for the poet's sake,

The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word,
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure, to record."

48

ON CLASSIC POETRY.

As an apology for this admitted defect, and in justification of the contempt put upon classic allusions, the noble author makes these observations:

"I wish to express, that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote, before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages of Shakspeare, ('To be, or not to be,' for instance,) from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise, not of mind, but of memory; so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the Continent young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I

ON CLASSIC POETRY.

49

was not a slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one could be more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and with reason:-a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor (the Reverend Dr. Joseph Drury) was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late, when I have erred; and whose counsels I have but followed when I have done well and wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration, -of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if by more closely following his injunctions he could reflect any honour upon his instructor."

Pleasing as this tribute of gratitude is, it would have been more so had the noble author forborne to satirize in the coarsest strain of rude invective, by the appellation of Pomposus, the head master of the same seminary, for no other cause in the world than that of having enforced, without any relaxation in favour of individuals, the statutes of the house over which he presided.

E