question put in the friendliest manner, endeavoured to solicit my attention. My heart had been long shut to kindness, but the sentiment was not dead in me: it revived at the first encouraging word: and the gratitude I felt for it, was the first pleasing sensation I had ventured to entertain for many dreary months.

Together with gratitude, hope, and other passions still more enlivening, took place of that uncomfortable gloominess which so lately possessed me: I returned to my companions, and by every winning art in my power, strove to make them forget my former repulsive ways. In this I was not unsuccessful; I recovered their good will, and by degrees grew to be somewhat of a favourite.

My master still murmured; for the business of the shop went on no better than before: I comforted myself, however, with the reflection, that my apprenticeship was drawing to a conclusion, when I determined to renounce the employment forever, and to open a private school.

In this humble and obscure state, poor beyond the common lot, yet flattering my ambition with day-dreams which, perhaps, would never have been realized, I was found in the twentieth year of my age by Mr. William Cookesley, a name never to be pronounced by me without veneration. The lamentable doggerel which I have already mentioned, and which had passed from mouth to mouth among people of my own degree, had by some accident or other reached his ear, and given him a curiosity to inquire after the author.

It was my good fortune to interest his benevolence. My little history was not untinctured with melancholy, and I laid it fairly before him: his first care was to console: his second, which he cherished to the last moment of his existence, was to relieve and support me.

Mr. Cookesley was not rich: his eminence in his profession which was that of a surgeon, procured him, indeed, much employment; but in a country town, men of science are not the most liberally rewarded; he had, besides, a very numerous family, which left him little for the purposes of general benevolence; that little, however, was cheerfully bestowed, and his activity and zeal were always at hand to supply the deficiencies of his fortune.

On examining into the nature of my literary attainments, he found them absolutely nothing; he heard, however, with equal surprise and pleasure, that amidst the grossest ignorance of books, I had made a very considerable progress in the mathematics. He engaged me to enter into the details of this affair; and when he learned that I had made it in circumstances of discouragement and danger, he became more warmly interested in my favour, as he now saw a possibility of serving me.

The plan that occurred to him was naturally that which had so often suggested itself to me. There were, indeed, several obstacles to be overcome. I had eighteen months yet to serve; my hand-writing was bad, and my language very incorrect; but nothing could slacken the zeal of this excellent man; he procured a few of my poor attempts at rhyme, dispersed them amongst his friends and acquaintance, and when my name was become somewhat familiar to them, set on foot a subscription for my relief. I still preserve the original paper; its title was not very magnificent, though it exceeded the most sanguine wishes of my heart: it ran thus, "A subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in Writing and English Grammar." Few contributed more than five shillings, and none went beyond ten-and-six-pence: enough, however, was collected to free me from my apprenticeship (the sum my master received was six pounds) and to maintain me for a few months, during which I assiduously attended the Rev. Thomas Smerdon.

At the expiration of this period, it was found that my progress (for I will speak the truth in modesty) had been more considerable than my patrons expected: I had also written in the interim several little pieces of poetry, less rugged, I suppose, than my former ones, and certainly with fewer anomalies of language. My preceptor, too, spoke favourably of me; and my benefactor, who was now become my father and my friend, had little difficulty in persuading my patrons to renew their donations, and continue me at school for another year. Such liberality was not lost upon me; I grew anxious to make the best return in my power, and I redoubled my diligence. Now, that I am sunk into indolence, I look back with some degree of scepticism to the exertions of that period.

In two years and two months from the day of my emancipation, I was pronounced by Mr. Smerdon, fit for the university. The plan of opening a writing school had been abandoned almost from the first; and Mr. Cookesley looked round for some one who had interest enough to procure me some little office at Oxford. This person, who was soon found, was Thomas Taylor, Esq. of Denbury, a gentleman to whom I had already been indebted for much liberal and friendly support. He procured me the place of Bib. Lect. at Exeter College: and this, with such occasional assistance from the country as Mr. Cookesley undertook to provide, was thought sufficient to enable me to live, at least, till I had taken a degree.

During my attendance on Mr. Smerdon I had written, as I observed before, several tuneful trifles, some as exercises, others voluntarily, (for poetry was now become my delight) and not a few at the desire of my friends. When I became capable, however, of reading Latin and Greek with some degree of facility, that gentleman employed all my leisure hours in translations from the Classics; and indeed I do not know a single school book, of which I did not render some portion into English verse. Among others Juvenal engaged my attention, or rather my master's, and I translated the tenth Satire for a holyday task. Mr. Smerdon was much pleased with this (I was not undelighted with it myself) and as I was now become fond of the author, he easily persuaded me to proceed with him, and I translated in succession the third, the fourth, the twelfth, and I think the eighth Satires. As I had no end in view but that of giving a temporary satisfaction to my benefactors; I thought little more of these, than of many other things of the same nature which I wrote from time to time, and of which I never copied a single line.

On my removing to Exeter College, however, my friend, ever attentive to my concerns, advised me to copy my translation of the tenth Satire, and present it, on my arrival, to the Rev. Dr. Stinton (afterwards Rector) to whom Mr. Taylor had given me an introductory letter: I did so and it was kindly received. Thus encouraged, I took up the first and and second Satires (I mention them in the order they were translated) when my friend, who had sedulously watched my progress, first started the idea of going through the whole, and publishing it by subscription, as a means of increasing my means of subsistence. To this I readily acceded, and finished the thirteenth, eleventh, and fifteenth Satires: the remainder were the work of a much later period.

When I had got thus far, we thought it a fit time to mention our design; it was very generally approved of by my friends; and on the first of January, 1781, the subscription was opened by Mr. Cookesley at Ashburton, and by myself at Exeter College.

So bold an undertaking so precipitately announced, will give the reader, I fear, a higher opinion of my conceit than of my talents: neither the one nor the other, however, had the smallest concern with the business, which originated solely in ignorance. I wrote verses with great facility, and I was simple enough to imagine that little more was necessary for a translator of Juvenal! I was not, indeed, unconscious of my inaccuracies: I knew that they were numerous, and that I