Of  his  attainments  in  knowledge  during  the  first  nineteen
years  of  his  life,  it  is  difficult  to  speak  with  precisicm.  Those
years,  as  we  have  seen,  were  not  spent,  like  the  correspond*
ing  years  of  many  others,  in  the  public  walks  of  learning,  in
the  contests  of  the  schools,  and  in  association  with  living
men  famous  in  the  world  of  letters ;  scenes,  where  genius,
sdiolarship  and  taste  win  their  triumphs,  wreath  th&n-
selves  in  the  laurels  of  feme,  and  gain  for  their  academic
escutcheons  an  early  emblazonry.  On  the  contrary,'  they
were  years  qpent  in  most  simple  retirement,  in  laborious  oc-
cupation, and  in  litde  more  than  midnight  devotions  at  the
shrine  of  knowledge ;  in  measuring  himself,  intellectually,
with  himself  alone ;  or,  in  making  a  ploughman's  field  the
only  palsestra  of  his  scholarship,  and  the  ploughman  himself
his  sole  intellectual  wresder.  And  yet,  we  caimot  but  think
highly  of  his  attaimnents  even  at  that  period,  if  we  reflect,
that,  while  laboring  in  agricultural  pursuits  with  others  of  his
age  and  &mily,  and  for  as  many  hours  as  they,  he  had,  at
the  time  of  his  unexpectedly  early  marriage,  quadified  himself
for  entering  the  Senior  class  of  Yale  College,  and,  in  addition
to  all  this,  read  almost  every  volume  in  the  valuable  library
of  his  uncle  Viets !  What  results  in  scholarship  would  not
such  a  mind,  with  such  indomitable  habits  of  industry,  have
achieved,  had  his  whole  time  been  devoted  to  the  gratifica-
tion of  his  one  insatiable  desire!

I  have  somewhere  read  the  remark  that  äiere  was  seldom,
if  ever,  a  great  man,  who  did  not  attempt,  at  some  period  or
other  of  his  life,  to  write  poetry.  The  attempt  does  not,  in*
deed,  prove  greatness ;  nor  does  greatness  always  insure  sue*
cess  in  the  attempt.  Still,  the  remark  is  probably  in  a  good
measure  conformable  to  fact.  Mr.  Griswold,  at  the  age,  of
which  I  have  been  speaking,  was  not  great  because  he  at-
tempted  to  write  poetry ;  nor  were  his  attempts  at  this  species
of  composition  the  best  proofe  of  his  power.  And  yet,  like
most  other  minds,  capable  of  entering  into  the  true  spirit  of
poetry,  he  was  in  youth  fond  of  amusing  himself  in  this  way.
