Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/370

356 His residence abroad, which lasted from November 1795 to May 1796, gave rise to his "Letters from Spain and Portugal," and on his return he commenced writing for "The Monthly Magazine" and other periodicals. "I am continually writing or reading," he observes, in a letter to a friend; "if industry can do anything for any man, it shall for me. My plan is to study from five in the morning till eight, from nine till twelve, and from one till four. The evenings are my own." Meantime he projected Epics, Tragedies, Histories, Romances; nothing was too arduous for his bold ambition.

To ensure a competence, however, he proposed to undertake the study of the law, though without any serious intention of devoting himself to the profession. When a sufficiency had been gained, he would retire to the country, and his first Christmas fire should be made of his calf-bound volumes. "Oh, Grosvenor," he writes, "what a blessed bonfire!" No wonder the study baffled him. That rugged mistress must be perseveringly wooed, and for her own sake alone, otherwise the brightest minds will fail where every day we see plodding mediocrity excel.

He looked forward to a residence in London with a shrinking dread; and it was with undisguised dissatisfaction he went up and entered himself at Gray's Inn. (Feb. 7th, 1797). His old schoolfellow at Westminster, Mr. C. W. W. Wynn, with rare and honourable generosity, offered him an annuity of £160 per annum, which he frankly accepted.

In the spring, thinking his law studies could be pursued as successfully in the country as in London, he took lodgings at Burton, in Hampshire. Here he soon found himself to his heart's delight, the centre of a family group. His mother joined him, and his brother Thomas, a midshipman just released from prison at Brest. Charles