Poetry > Ballads in the Cumberland dialect

LIFE OF THE ATJTHOfi.
XU
fortune to obtain employment under one of
amiable disposition and upright intentions. His
kindness was like that of a parent, and he proved
to be more like a companion than a master.
It was in London, in the year 1794, that he
seems first to have tuned his lyre: we record the
circumstance in his own words:—“Being at
Vauxhall Gardens, I happened to fall in with a
pleasant youth, whose appearance was truly re¬
spectable. We felt equally disgusted with many
of the songs written in a mock pastoral Scottish
style; and supposing myself capable of pro¬
ducing what might by the public be considered
equal, or perhaps superior, on the following day
I wrote four,—viz., ‘Lucy Gray of Allendale,’ ‘I
sigh for the girl I adore,’ ‘The lovely brown
Maid, ’ and ‘ Ellen and I. ’ Lucy Gray was my first
attempt at poetical composition; and was sug¬
gested from hearing a Northumbrian rustic relate
the story of the unfortunate lovers.” These
songs, with some others, were set to music by-
Mr. Hook, a composer of eminence, with whom
the writer had formed an acquaintance, and were
received with the utmost favour by the public—
particularly his first effort, “Lucy Gray,” which
was sung at Vauxhall, and elicited the warmest
applause.
Our Bard, about this period, used occasionally
to engage his leisure hours in another description
of writing—one more manual than mental,—that
of putting given pieces in the smallest possible
compass; and he succeeded in writing, by candle
light, and without the aid of glasses, the Lord’s
Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, a
psalm, and his name, upon a piece of paper the