Pendennis's knee, and listening to Pen reading out to her of nights without comprehending one word of what he read.

He read Shakespeare to his mother (which she said she liked, but didn't), and Byron, and Pope, and his favourite Lalla Rookh, which pleased her indifferently. But as for Bishop Heber, and Mrs. Hemans above all, this lady used to melt right away, and be absorbed into her pocket-handkerchief, when Pen read those authors to her in his kind boyish voice. The »Christian Year« was a book which appeared about that time. The son and the mother whispered it to each other with awe. Faint, very faint, and seldom in afterlife Pendennis heard that solemn church music; but he always loved the remembrance of it, and of the times when it struck on his heart, and he walked over the fields full of hope and void of doubt, as the church-bells rang on Sunday morning.

It was at this period of his existence, that Pen broke out in the Poets' Corner of the County Chronicle, with some verses with which he was perfectly well satisfied. His are the verses signed »NEP.,« addressed »To a Tear,« »On the Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo;« »To Madame Caradori singing at the Assize Meetings;« »On Saint Bartholomew's Day« (a tremendous denunciation of Popery, and a solemn warning to the people of England to rally against emancipating the Roman Catholics), etc., etc. – all which masterpieces Mrs. Pendennis no doubt keeps to this day, along with his first socks, the first cutting of his hair, his bottle, and other interesting relics of his infancy. He used to gallop Rebecca over the neighbouring Dumpling Downs, or into the county town, which, if you please, we shall call Chatteris, spouting his own poems, and filled with quite a Byronic afflatus as he thought.

His genius at this time was of a decidedly gloomy cast. He brought his mother a tragedy, in which, though he killed sixteen people before the second act, it made her laugh so, that he thrust the masterpiece into the fire in a pet. He projected an epic poem in blank verse, »Cortez, or the Conqueror of Mexico, and the Inca's Daughter.« He wrote part of »Seneca, or the Fatal Bath,« and »Ariadne in Naxos;« classical pieces, with choruses and strophes and antistrophes, which sadly puzzled poor Mrs. Pendennis; and began a »History of the Jesuits,« in which he lashed that Order with tremendous severity, and warned his Protestant fellow-countrymen of their machinations. His loyalty did his mother's heart good to witness. He was a stanch, unflinching Church-and-King-man in those days; and at the election, when Sir Giles Beanfield stood in the Blue interest, against Lord Trehawk, Lord Eyrie's son, a Whig and a friend of Popery, Arthur Pendennis, with an immense bow for himself, which his mother made, and with a blue ribbon for Rebecca, rode alongside of the Reverend Doctor Portman, on his grey mare Dowdy, and at the head of the Clavering voters, whom the Doctor brought up to plump for the Protestant Champion.

On that day Pen made his first speech at the Blue Hotel; and also, it appears, for the first time in his life – took a little more wine than was good for him. Mercy! what a scene it was at Fairoaks, when he rode back at ever so much o'clock at night. What moving about of lanterns in the courtyard and stables, though the moon was shining out; what a gathering of servants, as Pen came home, clattering over the bridge and up the stable-yard, with half a score of the Clavering voters yelling after him the Blue song of the election!

He wanted them all to come in and have some wine – some very good Madeira – some capital Madeira – John, go and get some Madeira; and there is no knowing what the farmers would have done, had not Madam Pendennis made her appearance in a white wrapper, with a candle, and scared those zealous Blues so by the sight of her pale handsome face, that they touched their hats and rode off.

Besides these amusements and occupations in which Mr. Pen indulged, there was one which forms the main business and pleasure of youth, if the poets tell us aright, whom Pen was always studying; and this young fellow's heart was so ardent, and his imagination so eager, that it is not to be expected he should long escape the passion to which we allude, and which, ladies, you have rightly guessed to be that of Love. Pen sighed for it first in secret, and, like the love-sick swain in Ovid, opened his breast and said, »Aura, veni.« What generous youth is there that has not courted some such windy mistress in his time?

Yes, Pen began to feel the necessity of a first love – of a consuming passion – of an object on which he could concentrate all those vague floating fancies under which he sweetly suffered – of a young lady to whom he could really make verses, and whom he could set up and adore, in place of those unsubstantial Ianthes and Zuleikas to whom he addressed the outpourings of his gushing muse. He read his favourite poems over and over again; he called upon Alma Venus, the delight of gods and men; he translated Anacreon's odes; and picked out passages suitable to his complaint from Waller, Dryden, Prior, and the like. Smirke and he were never weary, in their interviews, of discoursing about love. The faithless tutor entertained him with sentimental conversations in place of lectures on algebra and Greek; for Smirke was in love too. Who could help it, being in daily intercourse with such a woman? Smirke was madly in love (as far as such a mild flame as Mr. Smirke's may be called madness) with Mrs. Pendennis. That honest lady, sitting down belowstairs teaching little Laura to play the piano, or devising flannel petticoats for the poor round about her, or otherwise busied with the calm routine of her modest and spotless Christian life, was little aware what storms were brewing in two bosoms upstairs in the study – in Pen's as he sate in his shooting-jacket, with his elbows on the green study-table, and his hands clutching his curly brown hair, Homer under his nose – and in worthy Mr. Smirke's, with whom he was reading. Here they would talk about Helen and Andromache. »Andromache's like my mother,« Pen used to avouch; »but I say, Smirke, by Jove I'd cut off my nose to see Helen;« and he would spout certain favourite lines which the reader will find in their proper place in the third book. He drew portraits of her – they are extant still – with straight noses and enormous eyes, and »Arthur Pendennis delineavit et pinxit« gallantly written underneath.

As for Mr.