During his twelfth and thirteenth years Southey, ever eager in his beloved pursuit, exercised his poetic powers with much industry and enthusiastic perseverance. When writing, he searched and labored diligently to make himself master of the necessary historic facts and information relating to the particular subject with which he happened, from inclination, to be occupied. Even at this date he was fitting and accomplishing himself, by solitary and unaided study, and by practice in the coining and structure of sentences, for the career which circumstances and a genuine love of such matters led and incited him to select; and which he afterward did follow with an ardor, patience, and resolution in the highest degree creditable to himself, though rarely if ever equaled, and never surpassed by others. It was perfectly natural that the members of his family and their relations should experience a very justifiable elation at talents which were thus, perhaps, a little too precociously displayed; and Miss Tyler, flushed with pride at the acquirements of her clever nursling, insisted on his being educated to one of the learned professions. In this proposal she was, luckily, supported by Southey’s maternal uncle, a clergyman, who handsomely offered to defray the expenses which this otherwise satisfactory scheme would entail. Accordingly, in the spring of 1788, it was resolved that the young prodigy should be sent to Westminster School. His gayly-disposed aunt was rejoiced at so favorable an opportunity for going to London――then no such easy business as at present; and he was conveyed thither under her protecting wing.