home and
ransacked the neighbouring book-cases. He found at Clavering an old cargo
of French novels which he read with all his might; and he would sit for
hours perched on the topmost bar of Dr. Portman's library steps with an
old folio on his knees.

Mr. Smirke, Dr. Portman's curate, was engaged at a liberal salary to pass
several hours daily with the young gentleman. He was a decent scholar and
mathematician, and taught Pen as much as the lad was ever disposed to
learn, which was not much. Pen soon took the measure of his tutor, who,
when he came riding into the court-yard at Fair-Oaks on his pony, turned
out his toes so absurdly, and left such a gap between his knees and the
saddle, that it was impossible for any lad endowed with a sense of humour
to respect such a rider. He nearly killed Smirke with terror by putting
him on his mare, and taking him a ride over a common where the county
fox-hounds happened to meet.

Smirke and his pupil read the ancient poets together, and rattled through
them at a pleasant rate, very different from that steady grubbing pace
with which he was obliged to go over the _classis_ ground at Grey Friars,
scenting out each word and digging up every root in the way. Pen never
liked to halt, but made his tutor construe when he was at fault, and thus
galloped through the Iliad and the Odyssey and the charming, wicked
Aristophanes. But he went so fast that though he certainly galloped
through a considerable extent of the ancient country, he clean forgot it
in after life. Besides the ancient poets, Pen read the English with great
gusto. Smirke sighed and shook his head sadly both about Byron and Moore.
But Pen was a sworn fire-worshipper and a corsair; he had them by heart,
and used to take little Laura into the window and say, "Zuleika, I am not
thy brother," in tones so tragic that they caused the solemn little maid
to open her great eyes still wider. She sat sewing at Mrs. Pendennis's
knee, listening to Pen reading to her without understanding one word of
what he said.

He read Shakespeare to his mother, and Byron and Pope, and his favourite
"Lalla Rookh" and Bishop Heber and Mrs. Hemans, and about this period of
his existence began to write verses of his own. He broke out in the
poet's corner of the County Chronicle with some verses with which he was
perfectly well satisfied. His are the verses signed NEP addressed "To a
Tear," "On the Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo," "On St.
Bartho