Had I not the reader so completely at my mercy--did I not think him or her not only the gentlest but also the most deserving of all the progeny of Japhet--did I not think that it would be the very acme of ingratitude to impose upon him or her, I would certainly transcribe a centaine, or so, of these juvenile poems. It is true, they are very bad--but, then, that is a proof that they are undeniably genuine. I really have, in some things, a greatness of soul. I will refrain--but in order that these effusions may not be lost to the world, I offer them to the annuals for 1839; not so much for the sake of pecuniary compensation, but in order to improve the reading of some of that very unreadable class of books. Well, during these dismal holidays, I wrote verses and began to take, or to make, my madness methodical. The boys came back, and having left me a very Bobadil, they found me a juvenile Bavius. I now began to approach my thirteenth year, and, what with my rhyming and my fistical prowess,--my character for bravery and the peculiarity of my situation, as it regarded its mystery--I became that absurd thing that the French call "_une tete montee_." Root had ceased to flog me. I could discover that he even began to fear me--and just in proportion as he seemed to avoid all occasion to punish me, I became towards him mild, observant, and respectful. The consequence was, that, as I was no longer frightened out of my wits at church, from very weariness, and for the sake of variety, I began to attend to the sermons. What a lesson ought not this to be to instructors! One Sunday I returned from church in a state of almost spiritual intoxication. The rector was a pale, attenuated man, with a hollow, yet flashing eye--a man who seemed to have done with everything in this world, excepting to urge on his brethren to that better one, to which himself was fast hastening; and, on this memorable day, that I fancied myself a convert, he had been descanting on the life of the young Samuel. Of course he, very appropriately, often turned to the juvenile part of his congregation; and as I was seated in the front row, I felt as if I were alone in the church--as if every word were individually addressed to myself; his imploring yet impassioned glances seemed to irradiate my breast with a sweet glory. I felt at once, that since the goodness of the Creator was inexhaustible, the fault must rest with man if there were no more Samuels, so I determined to be one--to devote myself entirely to divine abstraction, to heavenly glory, and to incessant worship--and, stupendous as the assertion may seem, for six weeks I did so. This resolution became a passion--a madness. I was as one walking in a sweet trance--I revelled in secret bliss, as if I had found a glorious and inexhaustible treasure. I spoke to none of my new state of mind-- absorbed as I was, I yet dreaded ridicule--but I wrote hymns, I composed sermons.