the "Ode to Superstition," was begun before he was of age; and the "Pleasures of Memory" appeared while he was still a working partner in the Bank.

Having lost his father in 1793, whose death-bed he has touchingly alluded to in his "Lines written in a Sick Chamber," and, having united with him in business his younger Brother Henry, he soon afterwards retired from all active management of the affairs of the Banking House, and never resumed it. He quitted his paternal residence at Newington Green, where he was born and had spent the whole of his early life, and, after living a short time in chambers in the Temple, he removed, about 1803, to a house in St. James's Place, looking into the Green Park. This house he had altered and nearly rebuilt according to his own taste; and in it he resided until his death, on the 18th of December, 1855.

He has been heard to describe how, on some occasion after the death of his Father, he detected himself making a calculation as to the amount he might expect to accumulate if he continued to devote his whole time to the pursuit of wealth; and he was so shocked by the idea of being influenced by such motives, that he determined to desist from active business, and to attend to it henceforth only occasionally, or when matters of importance made the assistance of his judgment desirable in the affairs of the Bank,-a resolution to which he subsequently adhered.

This resolution gave him leisure to adopt, and indulge in, those pursuits which were more congenial to his taste and judgment; and to foster that love which, in the conclusion to his poem of Italy, he has described himself as having been gifted with by Nature:

66 passionate love for music, sculpture, painting,

"For poetry, the language of the gods,

"For all things here or grand or beautiful,

"A setting sun, a lake among the mountains,

"The light of an ingenuous countenance,

"And what transcends them all, a generous action."

With what success he profited by these gifts, and improved the advantages which he has thus described, it must be left to others to decide. His published works, and the reputation he enjoyed through a long life for taste in literature and the fine arts, and for genuine and unobtrusive benevolence, will assist in arriving at a correct opinion, which, it is hoped, will not be unfavorable.

The time occupied in the composition of each of his several works was considerable, as he was always ready to acknowledge. He pursued a practice, which he often recommended to others, of laying by his poems for a length of time after they were

written, in order to reconsider them again. and again, before thinking them complete. In illustration of this custom, it may be mentioned, that in his Commonplace-Book is the following entry, giving the dates of publication of his various works, his own age at the time, and the number of years occupied in the composition and revision of each. These particulars are here given in his own words:

From the year 1834, when, as he has thus described, he completed his last important work, until his death, he had

2

umes.

frequent occupation, while his health allowed, in preparing for the press the repeated issues that were called for, almost annually, of his previously published volAfter 1834 he wrote no poem of length, though he often introduced new lines and stanzas, or trifling alterations in the successive editions of his works. These changes or additions consisted in part of poetry; but the greater portion of his attention in the latter years of his life, as far as related to his own productions, was given to the notes to his "Italy," which he made a medium of recording his thoughts and sentiments on various subjects in connection with the poem. In these notes he took great interest; and the style of them, and the nature of the information conveyed, may be considered as approved by his mature judgment.

As a proof of the opinion entertained to