How deeply he felt the art of the Homeric poems, may be gathered from the following extract:--"I congratulate you on your conquest of the Iliad.

You must have been astonished at the perpetually increasing magnificence of the last seven books.

Homer there truly begins to be himself.

The battle of the Scamander, the funeral of Patroclus, and the high and solemn close of the whole bloody tale in tenderness and inexpiable sorrow, are wrought in a manner incomparable with anything of the same kind.

The Odyssey is sweet, but there is nothing like this." About this time, prompted by Mrs.Gisborne, he began the study of Spanish, and conceived an ardent admiration for Calderon, whose splendid and supernatural fancy tallied with his own.