In French, too, he progressed enough to be able to find his way alone in Paris two years later.

And however the saucy boy may have satirized his tutor in the droll verses on "Bedtime," Mr.Rowbotham always remembered him with affection, and spoke of him with respect.
In spite of these tedious tutorships, he managed to scribble energetically all this winter, writing with amazing rapidity, as his mother notes: attempts at Waverley novels, which never got beyond the first chapter, imitations of "Childe Harold" and "Don Juan" and scraps in the style of everybody in turn.

No wonder his mother sent him to bed at nine punctually, and kept him from school, in vain efforts to quiet his brain.

The lack of companions was made up to him in the friendship of Richard Fall, son of a neighbour on "the Hill," a boy without affectation or morbidity of disposition whose complementary character suited him well.

An affectionate comradeship sprang up between the two lads, and lasted, until in middle life they drifted apart, in no ill-will, but each going on his own course to his own destiny.
Some real advance was made this winter (1831-32) with his Shelleyan "Sonnet to a Cloud" and his imitations of Byron's "Hebrew Melodies," from which he learnt how to concentrate expression, and to use rich vowel-sounds and liquid consonants with rolling effect.