Mr. Knight, who had already earned the character of a man of letters, has since won for himself the more enviable distinction of a national benefactor by his admirable series of popular works, as well of amusement as of instruction. He has himself recorded the fact, which he evidently remembers with pleasure, that to him the subject of this memoir owed his first introduction to the world of letters, first at Eton, and afterwards at Cambridge. In 1826, after Praed had left the University, they were again associated in the production of a periodical entitled “The Brazen Head," which, however, notwithstanding the talent which Praed brought to its support, failed to attract public attention, and was abandoned after it had reached the third number. "Lidian's Love," with one or two shorter poems republished in this collection, first appeared in the ephemeral pages of this miscellany.

The following is Mr. Knight's account of this publication : "In the spring of 1826, St. Leger and I— at a time when there was little prospect of publishing books with any success-thought that a smart weekly sheet might have some hold upon the London public, who were sick of all money questions, and wanted equal merit with its predecessor, and is now published for the first time as a fragment. It was doubtless intended for the pages of the "Quarterly Magazine." The discontinuance of Praed's connection is indeed much to be regretted, if only for the abrupt conclusion of this charming poem, to which perhaps a fourth canto might have been added.

something like fun in the gloomy season of commercial ruin. We went to Eton to consult Praed. He entered most warmly and kindly into the project. We settled that 'The Brazen Head' should be the title; and that the Friar and the Head should discourse upon human affairs, chiefly under the management of our brilliant associate. * * * We had four weeks of this pleasantry, and, which was not an advantage, we had nearly all the amusement to ourselves, for the number of our purchasers was not 'Legion.' Yet in The Brazen Head' there are poems of Praed (unknown from the scarcity of these sixty-four pages to the Americans, who have printed three editions of his poems) which are every way worthy of that genius which his countrymen will soon be permitted more fairly to appreciate in an edition of all his poetical pieces, issued by an English publisher."

The autumn of 1825 saw Praed once more established at Eton, as Private Tutor to Lord Ernest Bruce, a younger son of the Marquis of Ailesbury. The circumstances under which he obtained this appointment, with his motives for accepting it, may be given in his own words, extracted from a letter written from Paris, where he first joined his young pupil, in the spring of the year.

"About a week before the Senate House debate, Dobree* called upon me to know whether I was

*The late eminent Greek scholar.

* * *

willing to take a private tutorship to which he had the power of recommending me. A negotiation took place which ended satisfactorily. I am to be with Lord Ernest two or three years, during which period I am to spend two years in preparing for a Trinity fellowship, and the rest in keeping terms at Lincoln's Inn, and preparing for the bar. With many men the accepting of such employment would be a virtual resignation of all hopes of advancement from an active profession; but for myself I have lived, during the last two years, a life of such continued and violent excitement, that I believe a period of retirement and abstraction will do more for me than any thing; and I have acquired, from a chain of circumstances and feelings that I cannot detail, a strong and enduring ambition in place of the frivolous longing for temporary notoriety which is all that you remember in me."

It will be obvious from this specimen that a far more lively impression of Praed's mind-his way of thinking and feeling-might have been conveyed from a connected series of his familiar letters than from any mere description, or literary portrait. But from this course the compiler of this biography has been withheld, first by the narrow limits within which an introductory memoir must necessarily be confined, and secondly by the character of the letters themselves. They are exactly what such letters should be, written as they were without the slightest expectation of their being preserved; records, for

the most part, of passing trifles, interspersed with lively comments, not without an occasional touch of satire, but without a vestige of ill-nature. Taken as a whole, they represent clearly and faithfully the heart and mind from which they flowed; but the scanty selection which could alone find place in these pages would not merely be inadequate for this purpose, but might even do the writer some injustice. He was a diligent, as he was a most delightful correspondent, and in every letter may be found some grace of expression, some witty turn of thought, a keen observation of men and manners; but they rarely touch, and never can be said to treat, on subjects of general interest, while the very warmth and tenderness of feeling which constitute their peculiar charm, entitle them to the sacred privacy for which they were originally intended.

The two years which he spent at Eton, amid scenes so much endeared to him by the associations of his schoolboy days, formed a pleasant sequel to his University life. The system of private tuition, as subsidiary to the regular instruction of the school, had about that period reached its climax, and a number of accomplished young men were thus added to the society of the place. Of the many distinguished scholars and clergymen with whom he was thus brought into contact, none who yet survive can have forgotten the grace and amenity of his manner, the charm of his good humor and vivacious spirits, the heartiness and zest with which he shared and pro

moted the social recreations with which the labors of tuition were relieved. Those who knew him more intimately will remember, above all, his unvarying kindness of heart. There can be no doubt that he shared largely in the pleasure to which he so freely contributed. It was during this, his second residence at Eton, that he commenced the brilliant series of poetical contributions to the magazines and annuals of the day which fills a large portion of the succeeding pages.

At the close of the year 1827 his connection with the Marquis of Ailesbury terminated. Hereupon he took his final leave of Eton-with mingled feelings. He had been for some time anxious to bring his tutorial engagement to a close, and enter upon the more active career to which he felt himself called; yet he could not take leave of so many kind friends without regret, or quit without a struggle a place in which, at two different periods of his life, he had found so much enjoyment. He now established himself at one of the Inns of Court, and devoted himself earnestly for some years to the professional study, and subsequently to the practice of the law.

He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, May 29, 1829. He went the Norfolk circuit, and was rapidly rising in reputation and practice. But the main current of his mind had run from the first in another direction. Even when engaged on the circuit he would post up to London to attend a parliamentary debate, hurrying back to his legal engagements as