The picture which he has drawn of his youthful love, in one of the
most interesting of his poems, "The Dream," shows how genius and
feeling can elevate the realities of this life, and give to the
commonest events and objects an undying lustre. The old hall at
Annesley, under the name of "the antique oratory," will long call up
to fancy the "maiden and the youth" who once stood in it: while the
image of the "lover's steed," though suggested by the unromantic
race-ground of Nottingham, will not the less conduce to the general
charm of the scene, and share a portion of that light which only
genius could shed over it.
He appears already, at this boyish age, to have been so far a
proficient in gallantry as to know the use that may be made of the
trophies of former triumphs in achieving new ones; for he used to
boast, with much pride, to Miss Chaworth, of a locket which some fair
favourite had given him, and which probably may have been a present
from that pretty cousin, of whom he speaks with such warmth in one of
the notices already quoted. He was also, it appears, not a little
aware of his own beauty, which, notwithstanding the tendency to
corpulence derived from his mother, gave promise, at this time, of
that peculiar expression into which his features refined and kindled
afterwards.
With the summer holidays ended this dream of his youth. He saw Miss
Chaworth once more in the succeeding year, and took his last farewell
of her (as he himself used to relate) on that hill near Annesley[37]
which, in his poem of "The Dream," he describes so happily as
"crowned with a peculiar diadem.
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