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which so affected his nervous system, that he never took his degree, and his intention of going into the church was therefore abandoned.

William Harrison Ainsworth was born on the 4th of February, 1805, at the house of his father, in King Street, Manchester; but not long after, the family removed to a very commodious and pleasantly situated country house, called Beech-hill, about two miles from the town on the Chetham side. Here was a very extensive garden; and here, all the time that could be spared by its possessor from professional pursuits was devoted to the studies and recreations of which he was so passionately fond. The grounds were laid out under his own eye, and several of the trees were planted by the young brothers.

To the education of the elder of these it is now necessary to refer. The early part of it was undertaken by his uncle, the Rev. William Harrison; and then, while still very young, he was placed at the free grammar-school in Manchester, in one of the classes of the Rev. Robinson (now Dr.) Elsdale. In this school, which was founded early in the sixteenth century, many persons eminent for science and learning have been educated. The list extends as far back as the reign of Mary, opening with the well known name of John Bradford, who suffered martyrdom in 1555. Reginald Heber (the father of the bishop) was here─Cyril Jackson, and his brother the Bishop of Oxford─the first Lord Alvanley, Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, David Latouche, the celebrated banker, the present Mr. Justice Williams, and many others.

Here our youthful student so far distinguished himself as to have received very flattering testimonials from Dr. Smith (the then head master of the school) and his colleague, Dr. Elsdale. He wrote several translations from the Latin and Greek Poets, which obtained their approbation. At that period (the practice we believe has been since discontinued) there were held, once a year, "speaking-days"─the head-boys reciting passages from the poets and orators, in Greek and Latin; and upon one of these occasions he obtained great praise and credit by reciting Seneca's Quis vere Rex? with a translation by himself. In this school he remained, gathering honour and advantage, until he reached the first form, when his father, who designed his son to be his successor, placed him as a clerk with Mr. Alexander Kay, a then rising, and since risen, solicitor in the town.

The blossom of that literary fruit on which the public, in more than one nation, has since fed with such eagerness and relish, had begun to develop itself previously even to this youthful period─and not in one form only, but in many; not in translations merely, but in original compositions─in tales, sketches, dramatic scenes─even in tragedies.

But to begin with the beginning, it should be mentioned that these literary predilections had their precursors in other tastes. The first passion, if report speak truly, took a pyrotechnic direction; it shot upward like a rocket. Firework-making was, in short, the earliest predilection that manifested itself with any considerable potency; and the first throb ofyoung ambition was to make a rocket in earnest. Roman candles, serpents, &c., were accomplished satisfactorily; but the "greatest was behind," the grand triumph was the rocket; and in the blaze and brilliancy of this, for it was at last achieved, the passion for pyrotechnic glory seems to have evaporated. Success sometimes involves terrible disappointment, and has the most unlooked-for consequences─swallowing up, in the moment of victory, all care and concern for the very objects of success.