Reminiscences of the Poet Percival.

His was a soul that once was warm and kind,—

That once could love with gentlest, purest flame;

So mild, so lovely, was his infant mind,

He would have loved, had not his frozen heart

Suspected every form, though e'er so fair;
How could he love, when racked by every smart,

And all the gloomy horrors of despair?—The Suicide.

A PECULIAR interest is attached to the memory of the poet Percival. The known eccentricities of his character will ever be associated with the brilliant effusions of his pen. As we contemplate that countenance so pale and death-like; that delicate frame so unsuggestive of the rich soul it embodied; that intellect so comprehensive and yet so minute in its grasp, so exquisitely refined and so painfully sensitive; that heart, the deep center of that mysterious inner life, with whose joys or griefs no stranger might ever intermeddle, as these associations rise to memory, while we recite his immortal poems, a darker tinge of sadness seems to fall on every strain, a deeper melancholy moans and sighs through those plaintive melodies.

With a sincere desire to keep the memory of Percival green in the souls of Yale students, we have made not a little effort to secure as

many facts and incidents of his life as may be appropriate and interesting in so brief an article as this must be. In the compilation of these anecdotes and facts, we have availed ourselves of whatever published sources we could readily obtain. We have also received much information and many valuable suggestions from the class-mates and friends of Percival, in New Haven, who knew him as he walked and lived among us. To their kind assistance we are indebted for whatever original matter this article may contain.

James Gates Percival was born in Berlin, Conn., the 15th of September, 1795. He was the second son of Dr. James Percival, a worthy physician of that town, a man, moreover, of decided intellectual vigor and enthusiasm. By the death of his father, in 1807, James Gates and his two brothers were left to a mother's care. The parish of Kensington, where the family resided, was noted for the beauty and variety of its natural scenery, and, no doubt, influenced not a little the poetic growth of the youthful genius. Wonderfully faithful in his allotted task, he yet studied nature and general literature even more. Alone he wandered, as always in later years, by retired brooksides or dark forest-paths, gathering specimens of rocks and stones, and giving them names,-the embryo chemist and geologist. Alone, too, in his little library, he would sit for hours, while his companions were at play, treasuring up those precious ores of knowledge that made America's greatest scholars wonder. He was the same shy, awkward, sensitive, non-committal, mysterious youth, as he was an eccentric, anomalous man, and, probably, none but few ever saw through that marble, secretive face, and read the prophecies of future fame, that were written in the deep chambers of his soul. A modest, delicate flower as he was, he needed the most careful nurture; but a sel'fish world trampled heedlessly on his soul, as it did that of the gifted Keats, and it grew to live a fragrant, yet a sickening life. A beautiful and accomplished young lady of the village excites his attention, while quite young. With her he studies botany, engages in long, delightful rambles, believes himself in love, and actually offers her his hand, in a carefully composed poetic letter. The negative reply, "engaged," written in plain prose, blasts his romantic hopes, and he begins to look upon this world as all a fleeting show. This was, probably, the disappointment that cankered his whole life and character. In that tender heart that sorrow ever lay,

"With a weight

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."

He entered Yale College at the age of sixteen, poorly prepared in Latin, and, indeed, in everything else, but with an innate love of study that soon enabled him to assume a prominent position as a scholar. His genius at composition had displayed itself in the district school, and in this broader field of action h also soon became a marked man. His "Prometheus," so widely known and so universally admired for its deep suggestiveness and poetic beauty, was delivered before the Brothers in Unity, during his Sophomore year. Some satirical verses, written against his persecutors in his own class, secured him "the respect of the Freshmen," though not rendering his tormentors much more gentlemanly. During his whole course, he preserved the same retiring, mysterious demeanor that had marked his childhood days, seeming to distrust human nature, and to live in mortal dread of its contact. His own room-mate relates that he scarcely ever spoke to him, but preferred solitude to society, even of intimate connections.

In his Freshman year, he handed some manuscript poems to Noah Webster, for publication; Webster advises him to wait a while. He next gives them to Gen. Howe, a leading book-seller of New Haven, but his manuscripts are not even examined. "I don't care; I will be a poet," he exclaimed with tears, and nerved himself to make good his prediction. To his delicately strung nature, this was a terrible wound.. More closely than ever he ignored social intercourse, and, at the close of the term, left College. The following year he returned, enters a lower class, and graduates five years after his entering, with the sobriquet of "the Poet," associated with his name. In his College studies he was very successful-equally proficient in classics and in mathematics and at Commencement received the Salutatory.

From 1827 until within a year of his death, he resided in New Haven. It is his life here that is of peculiar interest to us, associated as it is with many suggestive and familiar localities, and rendered doubly interesting by the many traditions handed down from the lips of thosewho knew him here as well as fellow mortal could ever know the character of so reserved and so eccentric a man. For a number of years he resided alone in a retired room of the Hospital, which was kindly placed at his service. Here he had but one room. This was his library, his kitchen, (for he boarded himself,) his bed-room and his parlor. This room no one but himself scarcely ever succeeded in entering. His most intimate friends were compelled to stand outside in the hall, while he came out of his retreat, locked his door, and engaged in a long, familiar and often brilliant conversation. Once or twice this den was entered, during his absence, by means of false keys, and the par