tion, he willingly overstepped the conventional distinctions by which society is divided. In the farm-house or the cottage, not alone at times of rustic festivity at a sheep-shearing, a wedding, or a christening, but by the ingle side with the grandmother or the "bairns," he was made, and felt himself, at home. It may be that his social tendencies, his willingness to see the best side of every character, and his disposition to reluct against what he considered uncharitable censures and pharisaical restrictions, may have led him to be less select than might be desired in the choice of his casual associates in humble life, or in a rank more nearly approaching to his own. If it were so, I know it not. Certain it is, that the individuals with whom he held most intercourse, to whom he was most attached, and who regarded him with the deepest interest-the most affectionate admiration—and this for a long course of years ;those by whom his death was most sincerely mourned, and by whom his memory is most dearly cherished, were not merely in the highest degree estimable, but in many cases persons of peculiar refinement, moral and intellectual. The inference is obvious. It was in some small measure to repay, or at least to express, the pleasure that he * In Westmoreland and Cumberland this word is pronounced "barns." derived from the society of these friends, that many of his occasional poems were composedsome of which will be found, I believe, to rank among the best of their kind. These were thrown off with the greatest facility, and in the most casual manner, though sometimes elaborated afterwards with considerable care. They exhibit the union of a graceful fancy, and highly cultivated powers of expression, with a certain thoughtful tenderness not unmixed with melancholy. They testify, in a peculiar manner, to his love of children—the young, the innocent, the beautiful, and the happy. This love was returned in kind ;-children doted upon him.-The exquiste sonnet, beginning "Hast thou not seen some aged rifted tower?" gives a deep and pathetic meaning to this fondness. He would nurse an infant by the hour. A like overflowing of his affectionate nature was seen in his fondness for animals-for anything that would love him in return-simply, and for its own sake, rather than for his. His manners and appearance were peculiar. Though not dwarfish either in form or expression, his stature was remarkably low, scarcely exceeding five feet, and he early acquired the gait and general appearance of advanced age. His once dark, lustrous hair, was prematurely silvered, and became His His latterly quite white. His eyes, dark, soft, and brilliant, were remarkably responsive to the movements of his mind, flashing with a light from within. His complexion, originally clear and sanguine, looked weather-beaten, and the contour of his face was rendered less pleasing by the breadth of his nose. His head was very small, the ear delicately formed, and the forehead, which receded slightly, very wide and expansive. hands and feet were also small and delicate. countenance, when in repose, or rather in stillness, was stern and thoughtful in the extreme, indicating deep and passionate meditation, so much so as to be at times almost startling. His low bow on entering a room, in which there were ladies or strangers, gave a formality to his address, which wore at first the appearance of constraint; but when he began to talk, these impressions were presently changed, he threw off the seeming weight of years, his countenance became genial, and his manner free and gracious. Of his conversation I am less able to speak from personal knowledge than many others. Let it not be thought that I speak of myself with any personal reference, when I say that he regarded his brother, the companion and friend of his happy boyhood, so long separated from him by the stern necessities of life, with very peculiar feelings. I had become idealised in his mind. Endeared ever more and more to his affections,*-(I was with him, he said, in his daily thoughts, and in his nightly dreams,) -I had become exalted in his imagination, so that his judgments respecting his far-off brother are to be regarded simply as part of himself. The truth is, that "he held my temper in a high respect," and with this was joined, besides some painful reflections, which were but too natural, a morbid and excessive self-depreciation; so that when, after absence of more than twenty years, I was enabled to visit him in 1843, he was at once excited and embarrassed. I had much communion with him in private,† but in society he was nearly silent. an * The following beautiful passage in one of his letters to a friend may well find a place here. "I cannot live much longer without a sight of my dear brother and his little ones. You cannot conceive how much my affections to my kindred are intensified by my increasing years. Time was that I thought lightly of the ties of blood, and held that every man should choose for himself a kindred and a brotherhood, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit; but whether I be grown wiser or weaker, I now believe that nature, which, though not God, is the law and power, and manifestation of God, is wiser than man, a more permanent and trustworthy exponent of the eternal reason than the mere human understanding-at best but the balance-sheet of the debtor and creditor accounts of the senses, too often miscalculated and sophisticated by the corrupt will." +"To D. C. "We grappled like two wrestlers, long and hard, With many a strain and many a wily turn; The general testimony of friends and strangers, however, leaves no doubt that the conversational eloquence of his early manhood remained unimpaired to the last. It is of course impossible to recal the charm which was almost universally attributed to his manners and to his habits-the pregnant thought, the wide-spreading fancy, the playful, good-humoured causticity to which his striking countenance, his rich, rhythmical voice, and even his eccentric demeanour, gave additional effect. On this subject, one of his friends (Mr. James Spedding), one well able to give evidence on this point, thus writes to me : "As to memoranda, I have some lively memoranda in my own mind of the impressions which his conversations The deep divine, the quaint fantastic bard, From night to night we did the strife adjourn. "The one was stiff as any bending reed Is stiff with ice, with frosty mail emboss'd, By nature flaccid as the lank sea-weed, But seeming stanch-by might of brittle frost. "The other, like a pine, was like to yield, But upward sprang, and heavenward pointed still: "Thou wert the pine, and I, with woeful ruth, |