He had reached fifty years before Fame had dropped a single wreath upon his brow, or he had even seriously courted the poetic Muse. “Dejection of spirits, which I suppose may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed.” He seems to have thought that the season of winter was the most congenial to the operations of his mind and the productions of his fancy. “The season of the year which generally pinches off the flowers of poetry, unfolds mine, such as they are, and crowns me with a winter garland. In this respect, therefore, I and my contemporary bards are by no means upon a par. They write when the delightful influence of fine weather, fine prospects, and a brisk motion of the animal spirits make poetry almost the language of nature; and I, when icicles depend from all the leaves of the Parnassian laurel, and when a reasonable man would as little expect to succeed in verse, as to hear a blackbird whistle.” The very spirit of modesty breathing through language deeply poetical! It is the province of genius, in its imaginative forms, to render tributary to its object the whole circle of the seasons, and to expound the thousand occult meanings of nature in her depths and her varieties, as well as to exhibit the more obvious images of beauty, of which she furnishes in such profusion the striking originals. Hear the voice of his Muse apostrophizing even stern Winter: “I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness!”