My difficulty in making verses long pursued me. The pains I took to conquer this inaptitude, this stupidity, if you please, were inconceivable; many a severe rebuke, and far worse than rebuke, had I to sustain from my Orbilius. At length my luckier stars beamed upon me all at once, in a manner beyond my comprehension. After being tossed about in a tumultuous ocean, the storm subsided, the clouds dispersed, and I saw land. We had always a double portion of verses for our Saturday’s exercise. I am not quite certain that the subject on this occasion was not “Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac.” I always went to this task with a heavy heart, but some how or other, for I cannot explain the process, words seemed to present themselves suitable, and in their proper places, and with little or no exertion I completed my number, with an equal mixture of self-complacency and self-astonishment. On the Monday _I showed up_, with greater confidence than I had ever before experienced. The master read my verses, sneered, which he was wont to do, and said nothing. I well knew what he meant, but was not discouraged. I felt within myself, that I had crossed the asses’ bridge, and I determined to persevere. I did so, and in the course of the week showed up another and a still better copy of verses. My master, when he had proceeded about half way through them, paused, and looking at me significantly, exclaimed in a half angry tone, Are these verses your own? I replied in a tone which satisfied him of the truth, Yes. I had in consequence, the appellation of good boy, a term very sparingly and reluctantly bestowed. The other incident was this. I had not yet conquered the difficulty of writing English verse. Indeed I had long given it up in despair. I determined to make another effort. At a certain part of the school we were allowed occasionally to make English verses, instead of hexameters and pentameters; but it was an act of hardihood to do so, for the failure was attended with inevitable disgrace and punishment, derision from the boys, flagellation from the master. I resolved, however, to flesh my maiden sword in the enterprize. I succeeded with one single exception. I had my head full of old English poetry, of which I was exceedingly fond, and I unluckily transferred an obsolete epithet from Spenser, to a version of an ode from Horace. It was not unaptly applied, but it marks the extreme shrewdness and felicity with which boys catch the opportunity of conferring a cognomen. It gave me a nick-name, and I could not complain, that it was either absurd or unjust. I know not whether it be worth the mention, but here it was that I first had lessons in the French language, from a raw-boned Scotchman, whose dialect was as much like the Parisian, as the barbarous vocabulary of Oonalashka resembles the polished language of Moscow.