r that I (with however slight a smattering) had studied that
primitive tongue under Pusey and Pauli,--and I began to hope before his
awful presence. But, when he told me to read, and soon perceived my only
half-cured infirmity, he faithfully enough assured me with sorrow that I
could not be ordained unless I had my speech. So that first and sole
interview came to an untimely end: for soon after, not meaning to give
up the struggle at once, I resolved, before my next Episcopal visit, to
go down to Blewbury, the vicarage of my friend Mr. Evanson, who had
agreed to license me to his curacy, in order that by reading the lessons
in church I might practically test my competency. Of course, I prepared
myself specially by diligence, and care, and prayer, to stand this new
ordeal. But I failed to please even the indulgent vicar, though he got
his curate for nothing, and though his fair daughter amiably welcomed
the not ungainly Coelebs; and as for the severe old clerk,--he naively
blurted out, "Tell'ee what, sir, it won't do: you looks well,--but what
means them stops?" Alas! they meant the rebellion of tongue and lips
against every difficult letter, a _t_, or a _p_, or a far too current
_s_. And so I came to the wise conclusion that I was not to be a parson.
And perhaps it's as well I'm not; for my natural combativeness would
never have tolerated my bishop or my rector, or even the parish
churchwarden, specially in these days of Ritualism and Romanism. I was
thus thrown back upon myself: and I now see gratefully and humbly how I
was being schooled and forced into a mental era of silent
thoughtfulness, in after years the seed of several volumes as well as
innumerable ballads and poems which have flown as fly-leaves over the
world.

After this clerical failure, my good father urged me to turn to the law,
thinking that as a chamber counsel my intellectual attainments (and I
had worked hard for many years) might yet be available to society and to
myself, though on the "silent system:" but alas! verbal explanations are
as necessary in a room as at the bar; I soon perceived that all could
not be done on paper, and as I thoroughly hated law I speedily turned to
other sorts of literature, in especial the fixing of my own rhymed or
rhythmed thoughts in black and white.

There is a small chamber in the turret of No. 19 Lincoln's Inn Old
Square, on the second floor of rooms then belonging to my late friend
Thomas Lewin (afterwards a Mast