to charm,--as in the wedded love of
Fielding's Amelia,--but it is at a later day, when the mind is
trained to comparison, that we learn to prize excellence like
this as it deserves. Early youth is prince-like: it-will bend
only to "the king, my father." Various kinds of excellence
please, and leave their impression, but the most commanding,
alone, is duly acknowledged at that all-exacting age.

'Three great authors it was my fortune to meet at this
important period,--all, though of unequal, yet congenial
powers,--all of rich and wide, rather than aspiring
genius,--all free to the extent of the horizon their eye took
in,--all fresh with impulse, racy with experience; never to
be lost sight of, or superseded, but always to be apprehended
more and more.

'Ever memorable is the day on which I first took a volume of
SHAKSPEARE in my hand to read. It was on a Sunday.

'--This day was punctiliously set apart in our house. We had
family prayers, for which there was no time on other days. Our
dinners were different, and our clothes. We went to church. My
father put some limitations on my reading, but--bless him for
the gentleness which has left me a pleasant feeling for the
day!--he did not prescribe what was, but only what was _not_,
to be done. And the liberty this left was a large one. "You
must not read a novel, or a play;" but all other books, the
worst, or the best, were open to me. The distinction was
merely technical. The day was pleasing to me, as relieving me
from the routine of tasks and recitations; it gave me freer
play than usual, and there were fewer things occurred in its
course, which reminded me of the divisions of time; still the
church-going, where I heard nothing that had any connection
with my inward life, and these rules, gave me associations
with the day of empty formalities, and arbitrary restrictions;
but though the forbidden book or walk always seemed more
charming then, I was seldom tempted to disobey.--

'This Sunday--I was only eight years old--I took from the
book-shelf a volume lettered SHAKSPEARE. It was not the first
time I had looked at it, but before I had been deterred from
attempting to read, by the broken appearance along the page,
and preferred smooth narrative. But this time I held in my
hand "Romeo and Juliet" long enough to ge