It was probably during one of the vacations of this year, that the boyish love for his young cousin, Miss Parker, to which he attributes the glory of having first inspired him with poetry, took possession of his fancy.  “My first dash into poetry (he says) was as early as 1800.  It was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret Parker (daughter and grand-daughter of the two Admirals Parker), one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings.  I have long forgotten the verses, but it would be difficult for me to forget her—­her dark eyes—­her long eye-lashes—­her completely Greek cast of face and figure!  I was then about twelve—­she rather older, perhaps a year.  She died about a year or two afterwards, in consequence of a fall, which injured her spine, and induced consumption.  Her sister Augusta (by some thought still more beautiful) died of the same malady; and it was, indeed, in attending her, that Margaret met with the accident which occasioned her own death.  My sister told me, that when she went to see her, shortly before her death, upon accidentally mentioning my name, Margaret coloured through the paleness of mortality to the eyes, to the great astonishment of my sister, who (residing with her grandmother, Lady Holderness, and seeing but little of me, for family reasons,) knew nothing of our attachment, nor could conceive why my name should affect her at such a time.  I knew nothing of her illness, being at Harrow and in the country, till she was gone.  Some years after, I made an attempt at an elegy—­a very dull one.[25]

“I do not recollect scarcely any thing equal to the transparent beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, during the short period of our intimacy.  She looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow—­all beauty and peace.

“My passion had its usual effects upon me—­I could not sleep—­I could not eat—­I could not rest:  and although I had reason to know that she loved me, it was the texture of my life to think of the time which must elapse before we could meet again, being usually about twelve hours of separation!  But I was a fool then, and am not much wiser now.”

He had been nearly two years under the tuition of Dr. Glennie, when his mother, discontented at the slowness of his progress—­though being, herself, as we have seen, the principal cause of it—­entreated so urgently of Lord Carlisle to have him removed to a public school, that her wish was at length acceded to; and “accordingly,” says Dr. Glennie, “to Harrow he went, as little prepared as it is natural to suppose from two years of elementary instruction, thwarted by every art that could estrange the mind of youth from preceptor, from school, and from all serious study.”