when its shadow had passed from over him,
shine forth brighter and happier than before.

Woodville was the son of a poor clergyman and had received a classical
education. He was one of those very few whom fortune favours from
their birth; on whom she bestows all gifts of intellect and person
with a profusion that knew no bounds, and whom under her peculiar
protection, no imperfection however slight, or disappointment however
transitory has leave to touch. She seemed to have formed his mind of
that excellence which no dross can tarnish, and his understanding was
such that no error could pervert. His genius was transcendant, and
when it rose as a bright star in the east all eyes were turned towards
it in admiration. He was a Poet. That name has so often been degraded
that it will not convey the idea of all that he was. He was like a
poet of old whom the muses had crowned in his cradle, and on whose
lips bees had fed. As he walked among other men he seemed encompassed
with a heavenly halo that divided him from and lifted him above them.
It was his surpassing beauty, the dazzling fire of his eyes, and his
words whose rich accents wrapt the listener in mute and extactic
wonder, that made him transcend all others so that before him they
appeared only formed to minister to his superior excellence.

He was glorious from his youth. Every one loved him; no shadow of envy
or hate cast even from the meanest mind ever fell upon him. He was, as
one the peculiar delight of the Gods, railed and fenced in by his own
divinity, so that nought but love and admiration could approach him.
His heart was simple like a child, unstained by arrogance or vanity.
He mingled in society unknowing of his superiority over his
companions, not because he undervalued himself but because he did not
perceive the inferiority of others. He seemed incapable of conceiving
of the full extent of the power that selfishness & vice possesses in
the world: when I knew him, although he had suffered disappointment in
his dearest hopes, he had not experienced any that arose from the
meaness and self love of men: his station was too high to allow of his
suffering through their hardheartedness; and too low for him to have
experienced ingratitude and encroaching selfishness: it is one of the
blessings of a moderate fortune, that by preventing the possessor from
confering pecuniary favours it prevents him also from diving into the
arcana of human weakness or malice--To bes