rebellion of tongue and lips against every difficult letter, a t, or a p, or a far too current s.  And so I came to the wise conclusion that I was not to be a parson.  And perhaps it’s as well I’m not; for my natural combativeness would never have tolerated my bishop or my rector, or even the parish churchwarden, specially in these days of Ritualism and Romanism.  I was thus thrown back upon myself:  and I now see gratefully and humbly how I was being schooled and forced into a mental era of silent thoughtfulness, in after years the seed of several volumes as well as innumerable ballads and poems which have flown as fly-leaves over the world.

After this clerical failure, my good father urged me to turn to the law, thinking that as a chamber counsel my intellectual attainments (and I had worked hard for many years) might yet be available to society and to myself, though on the “silent system:”  but alas! verbal explanations are as necessary in a room as at the bar; I soon perceived that all could not be done on paper, and as I thoroughly hated law I speedily turned to other sorts of literature, in especial the fixing of my own rhymed or rhythmed thoughts in black and white.

There is a small chamber in the turret of No. 19 Lincoln’s Inn Old Square, on the second floor of rooms then belonging to my late friend Thomas Lewin (afterwards a Master in Chancery, and well known not only for his Law books, but also for his Life of St. Paul) where I used to dream and think and jot down Proverbial morsels on odd bits of paper which gradually grew to be a book.  Lewin once, I remember, picked up from the wastepaper basket these lines which he admired much, and asked me where they came from: 

    “For that a true philosophy commandeth an innocent life,
    And the unguilty spirit is lighter than a linnet’s heart.”

They occur in my Essay on Ridicule, first series, so I had to confess as found out.

When my book appeared Lewin offered to review it for me in the Literary Gazette, then edited by his friend Mr. Landon, L.E.L.’s brother.  An unusual rush of business just then coming in to him, and the editor pressing for copy, Lewin begged me to write the Article myself, to which I most reluctantly assented; resolving however to be quite impartial.  The result was that when I handed the critique to my busy friend, he quickly said after a hurried glance, “Why, this won’t do at all; you have cut yourself up cruelly, instead of praising, as you ought to have done.  I must do it myself, I suppose.  Here, copy out this Opinion for me, if you can read it:  it’s Mr. Brodie’s, and I can’t.”  With that he threw my MS. into the wastepaper basket, and I did his work for him, whilst he commended me with due vigour, and sent his clerk off with a too kind verdict in hot haste to the expectant editor.