He also found amusement in keeping tame hares, and he fancied that he had reconciled the hare to man and dog.

His three tame hares are among the canonized pets of literature, and they were to his genius what "Sailor" was to the genius of Byron.

But Mrs.Unwin, who had terrible reason for studying his case, saw that the thing most wanted was congenial employment for the mind, and she incited him to try his hand at poetry on a larger scale.
He listened to her advice, and when he was nearly fifty years of age became a poet.

He had acquired the faculty of verse-writing, as we have seen; he had even to some extent formed his manner when he was young.

Age must by this time have quenched his fire, and tamed his imagination, so that the didactic style would suit him best.