Opening: ‘The life of few indeed have experienced so liberal, and exalted a patronage as Dermody, and it is infinitely to be regretted that none ever made so unwise a use of it. Unfortunately, he had so connected himself with the lowest associates, that no resolution he possessed could shake off the power which those harpies had gained over his too easy disposition. They knew his foibles; which they nourished in order to profit by them, and this they did at too large a cost. The sacrifice of his happiness was by them considered as trifling and indispensable, provided they were themselves to benefit by [220] it; and even character and honourable feeling (which he sometimes told them, were necessary to be preserved) were, when their exigences pressed, to be given up. Such was the degrading condition to which his follies often reduced him, that he was considered by these wretches as in a state of vassalage, and by the dread of punishment to be rendered passive and obedient to their will. Sometimes he would, however, disregard their authority, and assert his independance: which he did by flying from one miserable lodging to another still more so; and remaining there till the same cause, or the terror of an arrest, compelled him to return to the former spot. Those who gained most by his weakness, were the persons with whom at various necessitous periods he lodged; and such was the power of habit, or such his fatal propensity for this kind of society, that he was continually involved with them in n their poverty and low excesses. The little food he required, was generally purchased and prepared [221] by them: and no regular agreement having been made, a running account was always kept against Dermody; according to which the sum he owed them might, for any knowledge he had of the justice of the claim, have been at any time one pound, or one hundred.  They found this plan too profitable to adopt any other; and by keeping him always in debt, they kept him always dread. Whenever he received a sum of money, he honestly brought it to his landlord, who always (as he termed it) “carried it to the account”; and when money wanted and Dermody had none to give, the request was in general followed by a arrest, which frequently turned out a very profitable speculation. The fear of a prison made him importune his friends, who never suffered him to languish in confinement: and as those who had occasioned his embarrassments were his messengers during such periods, they consequently obtained a knowledge of his patrons; and [222] turned the kind benevolence intended to relieve him, into a source of emolument to themselves. [… &c.]’ (Vol. II; pp.220-22.)

Appearance & character: ‘He was of a middle stature, well formed, and of a spare habit of body, he had a com prehensive forehead, full dark eyes, strongly marked eye-brows, and a and countenance expressive of genius, but tinged with reflection and melancholy. He wis ungraceful in his deportment, slovenly in his perso, diffident in his address, and reserved in his conversation; he had a simplicity and a modesty in his manner that created esteem and even respect: when irritated, he was [337] rather sullen than passionate: yet quick and inconsiderate in his resentment, sacrificing his interest to the impulse of imagined wrongs, and the attachment of his best friends on the slightest grounds of ideal offence. His poetical powers may be said to have been intuitive, for some of his best bpieces were composed before he had reached the twelve years of age; at which period he united in the full vigour of mahood, the strongest judgement and most unbounded fancy. His language, when he could be drawninto argument (which was always a hard task), was nervous, polished, and fluent. His classical knowledge (which was indeed wonderful, and is on every proper occasion displayed in his writings), added to a memory uncommonly powerful and comprehensive, furnished him with allusions that were appropriate, combinations that were pleasing, and sentiments that were dignified. He had an inquisitive mind, but could [33] never resist the temptations which offered to seduce him from his sturies. He was easily persuaded to forsake propriety: and paid as little regard to the character of his associates, as he did to the rules of prudence, the dictates of reason, or the opinion of the world; which last he at all time set at defiance. No one ever wrote with greater facility; his mind was stored with such a fund of observation, such an accumulation of knowledge gathered from science and from nature, that his thoughts, when wanted, rushed upon himlike a torrent, and he could compose with the rapidity with which another could transcirbe. On every occasion he discovered a clear judgement, a fanccy filled with the richest ideas, and ain intellect capable of delineating the grandest objects. He knew all the various shades of character; [...]’ (Ibid., pp.337-39.)

Concluding remarks: ‘There is scarcely a style of composition in which he did not in some degree excel. The descriptive, the ludirous, the didactic, the sublime; each, when occasion required, he treated with skill, with acute remark, imposing humour, profound reflection, and lofty magnificence. He delighted to wander through the romantic pages of antiquity: and had the happy talent of imitating the natural dignity and manly style of his poetical ancestors, with an effect which always gave to his productions the air, and grace of originality; though his period, his stanza, and his thoughts, were modelled on the poet whose [340] path he intended to follow. But in the height both of his imitation and of his fancy, the wildest excursions of his muse, he never forgets to make Nature his guide; end it may with confidence be said that no poet at such an early (if at any) period of life, ever copied her with more truth, or more keenly touched the hearts of his readers when his subject required the slumbering passions to be brought into action.  When the variety, the number, the beauty, and moral tendency, of his juvenile (they may almost be styled infantine) poems are considered; when their pretensions shall be examined, and their merits acknowledged; the follies of his youth will be forgotten or absolved; censure will be corrected with pity, while admiration is mingled with regret. What he had written before he arrived at the age of fourteen (portions of which have been laid before the reader in the course of this work) will surely justify [341] these opinions; and will at the same time create astonishment when it is added, that the poetry which had already composed at that period, would fill ten volumes of a moderate size. His translation of the Epitaphium Damonis of Milton, his Monody on the death of Chatterton, the Ode to Fancy, the Hymn to the memory of Thomson, the Dirge on Fidele in Cymbeline, the Elegy on himself (the last of which poems the reader has seen in, the preceding sheets, and the others will form part of a future publication), with many pieces of equal merit, were produced before he had reached his twelfth year, and are monuments both of his learning and his genius. The early poems of Cowley, of Milton, and of Pope, bear no comparison with these; and will be found to possess less thought, less fancy, and less nature. In the cast of his mind he resembled the unfortunate Chatterton, and in his propensities the eccentric Savage: but in precocity of [342] talent, and of classical information, excelled both them and every other rival; having in the first fourteen years of his life, acquired a competent knowledge of the Greek, the Latin, the French, and Italian languages, and a little of the Spanish. Like Savage, he would participate in the pleasures of the lowest company; but had not the same eagerness after money, nor the same effrontery in demanding it of his friends: and notwithstanding Dermody’s insatiate desire for liquor kept him in in perpetual poverty, yet his applications for relief (though full of lamentations) were never degraded by meanness or fulsome adulation; nor did ingratitude, in his worst excesses, ever sully his character through life.

[Remarks on Savage; ... 343.] Dermody had a nature in some degree opposite to this; and only resembled Savage in his genius, in his misfortunes, and in his habits of living. He was as heedless of fame, as he was indifferent to the reception which his writings might meet with, from the public. He seldom corrected his works, but dismissed them with as little ceremony as he would shew to a lecturer on prudence, a stranger who had called to borrow money, or an acquaintance whom he never wished to meet again. The rich blossoms of his genius, from the first moment when they were discovered “wasting [344] their sweetness on the desert air”, expanded and flourished under the cherishing influence of liberal and exalted patronage. and the nutritious warmth of admiration and encouragement: but the instability of his temper never suffered them to fasten in the rich soil to which they had been trans- planted; and by an unhappy fatality of conduct his “bud of hope” (like Shakspeare’s violet, “sweet but not permanent”) bloomed but to perish. Had he qualified those errors which hurt only himself; had his ambition kept pace with the encouragement which he received; had he studied and pursued moral with the same ardour as poetical propriety; had his regard for character and decorum equalled his poverty and his love of dissipation; he might have, lived to be the admiration of the great, the “wonder of the learned, and the ornament of society; science might have smiled upon his labours, fame might have proclaimed [345] his excellence, and posterity with delight would record his name: but mistaking the way to happiness he plunged into misery, and fell an early victim to imprudence.’ [End.] (pp.340-46.)