‘Alas, another day is gone As useless as it was begun. The crimson’d streak of early morn Checks the sweet lark that o’er the corn Fluttered her wings at twilight grey; Expectant eyed the moving ray, Twitter’d her song in saddening mood To {calm} her clamorous callow brood {hush} In hope of less inclement skies. The hapless fisher---- No fly can tempt the finny brood When the wash’d bank gives up its mud. Beneath some tree he takes his stand ---- in doubtful shelter * * * * * Anxious to fancy every streak a ray. Not so the cotter’s children at the door, Rich in content, tho’ Nature made them poor, Standing on threshold emulous to catch The pendant drop from off the dripping latch. The daring boy--thus Briton’s early race {To feel the heaviest drop upon his face} {Foremost, must feel the drops upon his face,} Or heedless of the storm or his abode Launches his paper boat across the road-- Where the deep gullies which his father’s cart Made in their progress to the mart Full to the brim, deluged by the rain, They prove to him a channel to the main. Guiding his vessel down the stream Even the pangs of hunger vanish like a dream.’ As poetry these lines have little to recommend them, but they give us a glimpse of the man himself, and they prove that he had something of the poet’s comprehensive sympathies; that he was ‘a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions in the goings-on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.’ CHAPTER VI THE ‘LIBER STUDIORUM’ The object of this chapter--The first ‘Liber’ drawings were made at W. F. Wells’s cottage at Knockholt, Kent--‘Bridge and Cows’--Development of the so-called ‘Flint Castle’--Mrs. Wells--View of ‘Basle’--‘Little Devil’s Bridge’ and ‘London from Greenwich’--‘Martello Towers, Bexhill,’ and ‘Kirkstall Crypt’--Scene at Isleworth--The etching of the ‘Raglan Castle’ and ‘Source of the Arveron’ plates--Suggestion for the better exhibition of the ‘Liber’ drawings.