Concurrently with this acquaintance, so impressive and so elevating to me, from the unusual sanctity of Mr. Clowes's character, I formed another with a well-known coterie, more avowedly, and in a more general sense, literary, resident at Liverpool or its neighbourhood. In my sixteenth year [1801] I had accompanied my mother and family on a summer's excursion to Everton, a well-known village upon the heights immediately above Liverpool; though by this time I believe it has thrown out so many fibres of connexion as to have become a mere quarter or suburban "process" (to speak by anatomical phrase) of the great town below it. In those days, however, distant by one third of a century from ours, Everton was still a distinct village (for a mile of ascent is worth three of level ground in the way of effectual separation); it was delightfully refreshed by marine breezes, though raised above the sea so far that its thunders could be heard only under favourable circumstances. There we had a cottage for some months; and the nearest of our neighbours happened to be that Mr. Clarke, the banker, to whom acknowledgments are made in the _Lorenzo the Magnificent_, for aid in procuring MSS. and information from Italy. This gentleman called on my mother, merely in the general view of offering neighbourly attentions to a family of strangers. I, as the eldest of my brothers, and already with strong literary propensities, had received a general invitation to his house. Thither I went, indeed, early and late; and there I met Mr. Roscoe, Dr. Currie (who had just at that time published his Life and Edition of Burns), and Mr. Shepherd of Gatacre, the author of some works on Italian literature (particularly a Life of _Poggio Bracciolini_), and, since then, well known to all England by his Reform politics.