verse flowed spontaneously from his lips or pen. Every emanation of his young mind bore the insignia of genius, and loud prognostics of future celebrity were constantly trumpeted in his ears. But his brain was taxed to the exhaustion of his vital powers, and his health grew feeble. He was morbidly sensitive, untranquil, unsatisfied. Fickly ruled by the feeling of the moment, impulse was his guide; inclination his law. When the task he had commenced with ardor began to weary, he threw it aside. He performed on several instruments, but chiefly by ear; instruction bored him; he could not rein down his high-soaring genius with the needful curbs of arbitrary rules. Now and then he made a feeble effort to acquire skill and correctness, but was quickly overcome by fatigue, and often left the instrument in disgust. The necessity for application always disheartened him. He commenced, with enthusiasm, sketches that gave great promise, but seldom finished even the best. The mood had passed away, he said, and he could not work when the spirit was not upon him. He could not force his will, nor conquer his indolence. So with his poems; he dashed them off rapidly, in a species of poetic furor, but the gemlike thoughts, scattered carelessly through these rude inspirations, needed polish to bring out their lustre, and he could not tone down, condense, elaborate; thus his fatal facility prevented his ever reaching high excellence.
