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apportioned by parental anxiety to severer pursuits; but that the literary fruits of these stolen marches were not slight, a simple enumeration of his published pieces will shew. Having composed, prior to the appearance of Lord Byron's Foscari, a tragedy on the same subject, he sent some account of it to Constable's Edinburgh Magazine, in which miscellany the notice appeared a month previous to the publication of Byron's drama. A regular contributorship to that periodical ensued; but it did not absorb all his literary interest, for he wrote a tale for Taylor and Hessey's London Magazine, called the "Falls of Ohiopyle;" and through the medium of Mr. Arliss, the printer, published with Whittaker two poems, entitled the Maid's Revenge, and a Summer Evening's Tale. Some of the tales and essays thus scattered over various periodicals were afterwards collected into a little volume, under the title of "December Tales," and published by Whittaker.

Of what was unpublished we know nothing, but all these productions saw the light before their author was nineteen years of age. Thus early was he a prolific writer. It was at this period that his father's death occurred; from the shock naturally consequent upon which he awakened to a sense of the expediency ofcompleting his term as a conveyancer, and qualifying himself for assuming the professional responsibility which this bereavement devolved upon him. With this view he repaired to London, to finish his term with Mr. Jacob Phillips, of the Inner Temple. Yet it does not appear that he devoted himself with the adequate diligence and zeal to professional study. The literary enthusiasm was still the stronger feeling, though less productive in its immediate results than before; for the metropolis was a novel scene, and some time was spent in acquainting himself with its amusements.

Not long before the completion of his appointed stay in town, he commenced an acquaintance with Mr. Ebers, at that time the manager of the Opera House. A constant attendance there was of course included among his London pleasures. Still literature asserted its claims; and with Mr. Ebers, a few months after the commencement of their intimacy, he published a romance entitled "Sir John Chiverton." Of this work, which we never happened to read, we cannot, of course, offer any critical opinion; yet we remember to have observed that Sir Walter Scott has referred to it not uncomplimentarily in his Diary.^[1] We pass it to record a more important step in life─the marriage of Mr. Ainsworth to Fanny, the youngest daughter of Mr. Ebers. This event occurred in the autumn of 1826. Three daughters, still living, were the offspring of this union. They lost their mother in the spring of 1838.

The connexion thus formed with Mr. Ebers had a material influence in deciding the young law-student as to the course he should pursue. His repugnance to "conveyancing" being insuperable, and his tastes and inclinations being decidedly literary, he readily listened to the suggestions of Mr. Ebers to make an experiment as a publisher. The sacrifice, to be sure, was considerable. It involved the relinquishment of his share in his father's lucrative business, which had been carried on meanwhile by two partners, at the head of whom he would necessarily be placed; it was the exchanging a certainty for a chance. Yet, on the other hand, he was to secure the advan-

1. ↑ "I read with interest, during our journey, Sir John Chiverton and Brambletye House─novels, in what I may surely claim as the style 'Which I was born to introduce, Refined it first, and shew'd its use!' These are both clever books."─Scott's Diary, Oct. 17, 1826.