tiring, unostentatious kind of genius, which, though not unconscious of its powers, retires from the vulgar gaze, shrinking, like the tenderest of plants, whether it is wooed by the hot embrace of the sun, or chilled by "the rude breath of the north," was not unmarked of many who had watched its first timid buddings, and joyed over its expanding ripeness. But the early promise of that ill-fated youth, and the keen blast of adversity that crushed it, is a common, but a sad story. He was one of that numerous but luckless race, whose hopes of ingenuous fame are high and ardent, and whose fancy is wont to revel amidst the bright, though fallacious, visions that are incident to a strong poetic temperament, intensely excited. But neither genius, nor letters brought him the few humble distinctions which he merited; nor, after a season, the bread that nature must not be denied. With a constitution habitually delicate, and sinking under disappointment (for the iron had entered his soul), he attended the long midnight debates of Parliament as a reporter; and gave, in that capacity, the fullest satisfaction to his employers. Under

these labours, aggravated by the unseen but unintermitted anxieties of his mind, his constitution sank rapidly; and our honest-hearted friend, Linley, rescued him, whilst he was on his deathbed, from the ruffians of the law, whom a low attorney had let loose upon him at that awful moment when all consciousness had nearly left him, and his life stood on his lips as if ready to depart.

It was only within a small circle that the poetical talents of Charles Leftley were known or appreciated. The laboured mediocrity, the tinsel polished into glare, which, since his time, have been allowed to pass for poetry, and to usurp its rewards, placed by the side of his severe and chastened taste, and his simple but captivating imagery, glowing alike with the warmth of his heart, and of his imagination, would have faded into nothingness. I think Southey, who is never slow to discern, nor reluctant to acknowledge all kinds of contemporary merit, was the first who directed the public attention to poor Leftley's sonnets, as master-pieces in their kind. Alas! it was a thankless muse that he medi

tated." Fortunately, he died before the existing

**

school of poetry had arisen (if the sacred name of poetry is to be so prostituted), before praise and emolument had been showered down on the *** and the hoc genus omne, whose theory it is that nothing is poetical that does not recede from common sense in thought or perspicuity in expression, or the bitterness of his own disappointment would have been in no slight degree sharpened by the misdirected patronage of compositions so revolting to a mind that is truly and essentially poetic.

The little life of Charles Leftley was "rounded by a dream;" but it was a dream into which the whole vitality, the very identity of a youthful poet, becomes transfused. He loved; and in his decaying health to have told him that his passion was not returned, would have at once snapped the filmy thread on which his existence hung: it was returned-not, indeed, with love, which comes at no one's bidding, yet with all that a kind and compassionate nature could yield in its place by pity, which is generally supposed (perhaps erroneously) to be akin to it. He was willing to be deceived; and he believed that a

warmer feeling inspired it-a feeling that was not divided with others, but glowed in the gentlest of female bosoms for himself alone. Who could find it in his heart to dislodge this cherished idea

-to refute this hallowed creed of his imagination? But despondence, and even despair, had also their turns; moments came upon him when he felt that, however agonizing it was to doubt, it was folly to hope; and he would sit whole hours, benighted in the soul's gloom, brooding over the sad accidents of sickness, neglect, obscurity, and indigence, that had so cruelly darkened his prospects, and crossed his early and his latest aspirations. Disease, therefore, upon feelings thus attuned, and a frame so enervated, made but short work of it. I must not forget to mention that the vision of Leftley's heart and fancy was his friend Linley's sister; a miniature resemblance of Mrs. Sheridan, endued with many of her graces, and, in musical accomplishments, scarcely inferior to that highly-gifted woman. This lady afterwards made a matter-of-fact match of it with a most unpoetical personage, a Mr. Ward; but she soon followed, and almost as

prematurely, the early fate of the female branch of her family.

Linley collected, with a pious care for his poor friend's memory, his scattered poetical frag. ments, and published them in a volume, to which he prefixed a short biographical notice. But he did not shine as an editor, having inserted in the book as many of his own pieces as of Leftley's ; or as a wag, who was mentioning the circumstance at the Beef-Steaks, expressed it," he had packed up his own clothes in his friend's portmanteau." But Will, as a biographer, laid himself quite prostrate to the attacks of the Club; for in that little composition, not a few of those solecisms had escaped him, to which unpractised writers are always liable, and these were carefully picked up by some facetious critic for a little mirth at his expense. The luckless sen

tences which this merciless censor hauled into notice ran thus: Charles Leftley was the eldest son of his father;" —a truth, for the correctness of which, Linley warmly pledged himself. The same playful persecutor of Bill's authorship found also, or pretended to find (for the rogue read it all from the book) the following Johnsonian pas