When the excitement of that period had subsided, he
again appeared in his father's house, resumed his accustomed sports of
fishing and fowling, and devoted much of his time to literary pursuits,
for which he had great natural capacity, and towards which he was all
the more inclined because of the blight put upon his social powers by an
unfortunate accident which occurred to him when about the age of
thirteen years. He had brought a flask of powder near the fire, and was
engaged either in the operation of drying it or casting some grains into
the coals for amusement, when the whole quantity exploded. The shock and
the injuries he sustained nearly proved fatal to him; when he recovered,
it was with his hearing nearly quite destroyed, and his sight
permanently impaired. But Kickham had the poet's soul within him, and it
was his compensation for the losses he had sustained. He could still
hold communion with nature and with his own mind, and could give to the
national cause the service of a bold heart and a finely-cultivated
intellect. Subsequent to the decadence of the '48 movement he wrote a
good deal in prose and verse, and contributed gratuitously to various
national publications. His intimate acquaintance with the character and
habits of the peasantry gave a great charm to his stories and sketches
of rural life; and his poems were always marked by grace, simplicity,
and tenderness.
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