pate children from the prim decorum and polite
restraint of the nursery, young Griffin was pouring with unmixed delight
over the pages of Horace, Ovid and Virgil. Of the three, he preferred
the sweet pastoral of the gentle poet of Mantua, and to the end of his
life retained this partiality. Inspiration caught from so pure a source
wrought itself into innumerable songs and sonnets, which Gerald managed
to write clandestinely, when some new frolic drew away the attention of
his brothers and sisters, and left him in the enjoyment of a peaceful
hour and a quiet corner. During these intervals of busy writing he was
insensibly acquiring that light and graceful style, by the gentle charm
of which the most sober strain of serious thought became the most
acceptable kind of agreeable reading. Though still young, he could well
realize how indispensable a good style is for literary success. He lived
at a time when books were comparatively scarce, in a district remote
from easy access to well-filled libraries; when the cost of
transportation often equalled the advertised price for the newest canto
of "Childe Harold," or the latest novel by the "Great Unknown." But what
would have been disadvantages to many a beginner proved to have been of
incalculable benefit to Gerald Griffin. His knowledge of books and
authors was limited to the extent of his mother's library, and it
contained, among other choice works, the writings of the inimitable
author to whose graceful allurement Washington Irving owed half his fame
and all the classic sweetness of his fascinating style. He copied out
whole chapters of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and rarely went out of doors
without bringing for a companion a copy of the "Animated Nature."

In the boy, pensive and serious beyond his years, might be traced the
different characteristics of mind and heart which eventually made up the
texture of his later manhood, the yearning desire for retirement, the
habit of sober reflection, the trait of gentle sadness, and the
passionate love for home and country. The years of his childhood passed
unattended by a single sorrow. Time, however, brought a change, which
broke rudely in upon the even tenor of his happy life. The pretty
homestead on the banks of the Shannon was to be broken up, old poetic
haunts had to be forsaken, and the sheep of the little fold were to be
dispersed.

In the year 1820 his father suffered such heavy losses that a slender
competency was all that