CHAPTER III.
YOUNG AUTHORSHIP IN VERSE AND PROSE.
Of my earliest MS., written soon after my seventh birthday, I have no copy, and only a very confused memory: but I remember that my good mother treasured for years and showed to many friends something in the nature of an elegy which a broken-hearted little brother wrote on the death of an infant sister from his first school: this is only mentioned in case any one of my older readers may possibly supply such a lost MS.
in a child's roundhand.

At school, chiefly as a young Carthusian, I frequently broke out into verse, where prose translation was more properly required: seeing that it pleased my indolence to be poetical where I was not sure of literal accuracy, and (I may add) it rejoiced me to induce a certain undermaster to suspect and sometimes to accuse this small poetaster of having "cribbed" his metrical version from some unknown collection of poems: however, he had always to be satisfied with my assurance as to authenticity, for he was sure to be baffled in his inquiries elsewhere.
One such instance is extant as thus,--for I kept a copy, as the assembled Charterhouse masters seemed to think it too good to be original for a small boy of twelve to thirteen.

Here then, as a specimen of one of my early bits of literature, is a genuine and unaltered poem (for any modern improvements would not be honest) in the shape of a translated Greek epigram from the Anthologia:-- "Not Juno's eye of fire divine Can vie my Melite, with thine So heavenly pure and bright; Nor can Minerva's hand excel That pretty hand I know so well, So small and lily-white.
"Not Venus can such charms disclose As those sweet lips of blushing rose And ivory bosom show; Not Thetis' nimble foot can tread More lightly o'er her coral bed Than thy soft foot of snow.
"What happiness thy face bestows When smiling on a lover's woes! Thrice happy then is he Who hears thy soul-subduing song,-- O more than blest, to whom belong The charms of Melite!" I was head of the lower school then, and I remember the father of Bernal Osborne patting my curly locks and scolding his whiskered son for letting a small boy be above him.
Much about this time, and until I left Charterhouse at sixteen, there proceeded from my pen numerous other mild rhymed pieces and sundry unsuccessful prize poems; _e.g._, three on Carthage, the second Temple of Jerusalem, and the Tower of London, whereof I have schoolboy copies not worth notice; besides divers metrical translations of Horace, AEschylus, Virgil; and a few songs and album verses for young lady friends, one being set by a Mr.Sala (perhaps G.A.S.had a musical relative) with an impromptu or two, whereof the following "On a shell sounding like the sea" is a fair specimen for a boy:-- "I remember the voice of the flood Hoarse breaking upon the rough shore, As a linnet remembers the wood And his warblings so joyous before." Of course, this class of my juvenile lyrics was holiday work, and barely worth a record, except to save a fly in amber, like this.
* * * * * Whilst I was at Charterhouse, occurred my first Continental journey, when my excellent father took his small party all through France in his private travelling carriage, bought at Calais for the trip (it was long before railways were invented), and I jotted down in verse our daily adventures in the rumble.

The whole journal, entitled "Rough Rhymes," in divers metres, grave and gay, was published by the "Literary Chronicle" in 1826, and the editor thereof, Mr.Jerdan, says, after some compliments, "the author is in his sixteenth year,"-- which fixes the date.

Possibly, a brief specimen or two of this may please: take the livelier first,--on French cookery: if trivial, the lines are genuine: I must not doctor anything up even by a word.
"Now Muse, you must versify your very best, To sing how they ransack the East and the West, To tell how they plunder the North and the South For food for the stomach and zest for the mouth! Such savoury stews, and such odorous dishes, Such soups, and (at Calais) such capital fishes! With sauces so strange they disguise the lean meat That you seldom, or never, know what you're to eat; Such fricandeaux, fricassees epicurean, Such vins-ordinaires, and such banquets Circean,-- And the nice little nothings which very soon vanish Before you are able your plate to replenish,-- Such exquisite eatables! and for your drink Not porter or ale, but--what do you think?
'Tis Burgundy, Bourdeaux, real red rosy wine, Which you quaff at a draught, neat nectar, divine! Thus they pamper the taste with everything good And of an old shoe can make savoury food, But the worst of it is that when you have done You are nearly as famish'd as when you begun!" For a more serious morsel, take the closing lines on Rouen:-- "Yes, proud Cathedral, ages pass'd away While generations lived their little day,-- France has been deluged with her patriots' blood By traitors to their country and their God,-- The face of Europe has been changed, but thou Hast stood sublime in changelessness till now, Exulting in thy glories of carved stone, A living monument of ages gone!-- Yet--time hath touch'd thee too; thy prime is o'er,-- A few short years, and thou must be no more; Ev'n thou must bend beneath the common fate, But in thy very ruins wilt be great!" More than enough of this brief memory of "Sixty Years Since," which has no other extant record, and is only given as a sample of the rest, equally juvenile.