'During these eight months [of striving for literary fame, aged eleven] I never felt myself of ore consequence or had a better opinion of my own talents -- In short I was in infinite danger of being as vain as I was inexperienced! During this dangerous period I was from home & the fever of a heated imagination was perhaps increased by the intoxicating gai[e]ties of a watering place Ramsgate where we then were and where I commenced my poem "The Battle of Marathon" [...] When we came home one day after having written a page of poetry which I considered models of beauty I ran downstairs to the library to seek Popes Homer in order to compare them that I might enjoy my OWN SUPERIORITY [...] I brought Homer up in triumph & read first my own Poem & afterwards began to compare -- I read fifty lines from the glorious Father of the lyre -- It was enough -- I felt the whole extent of my own immense & mortifying inferiority -- 'My first impulse was to throw with mingled feelings of contempt & anguish my composition on the floor -- my next to burst into tears! & I wept for an hour and then returned to reason and humility [...] From this period for a twelvemonth I could find no pleasure in any book but Homer. I read & longed to read again and tho I had it nearly by heart I still found new beauties & fresh enchantments'.