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266 the profession of the law, at the termination of which he was, in 1823, admitted an Advocate in the Supreme Court of the island. From his earliest years he had always shown himself possessed of a very studious disposition, and some of his poems seem to have been written when only eighteen years of age.

In the pursuit of the profession he had adopted, with his talent and energy, Heredia might have hoped soon to acquire a very honourable position; but unfortunately for his future comfort in life, he had imbibed too strongly the principles then prevailing to consider the domination of Spain as an evil which ought to be removed. It is stated, that there was a conspiracy even then formed to declare the independence of the island, in which he was implicated; and that on his being denounced to the government in consequence, he was obliged to fly from the island. Proceedings under this charge were notwithstanding instituted against him, under which he was formally declared banished. He thereupon went, in November 1823, to New York, where he passed the following three years, appearing, from the accounts that reached his friends, to have lived there during that time in great privations. These, and the variableness of the climate, operating severely on his constitution, as a native of the tropics, were no doubt the causes of his becoming a victim to that fatal disease which terminated his existence a few years afterwards.

In New York he acquired soon an accurate knowledge of the English language, which enabled him also to become familiarly acquainted with English literature. Of this he showed no inconsiderable tokens, in a volume of poems which he published there in 1825, having included among them several translations from the English, though he has not acknowledged them generally as such. He continued the same neglect in the edition of his works published subsequently in Mexico in 1832, which was a much superior edition to the