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left upon me; but I have never practised, nor indeed acquired, the art of setting such things down in writing; and they are like my impressions of a face which I know; which seems as definite and distinct as the life, until I try to draw it, and then I find that I can produce no resemblance. I could indeed quote several of his sayings with tolerable correctness, for his talk abounded in things quotable, but I believe that if we had a collection of as many of the sayings of Shakspeare as Ben Jonson could have remembered, set down one after the other as illustrations of his conversation, it would be very disappointing, and convey no part of a true impression of the thing."

Another friend, the same to whom I am indebted for the interesting sketch, already given, of his earliest manhood, thus records his impression in later years:

:

"In days subsequent to those which I have been attempting to remember, I have been constantly struck with new astonishment in every new interview with Hartley. The mine of his knowledge was inexhaustible. He had an acquaintance with every subject-with all books. Though in later years living in distant and sequestered scenes, where one might have thought his communion with Nature would have been greater than his worldly information, his knowledge of all that was passing in the bustling haunts of men, of every work that had been recently published, was complete, nay, even it might have seemed intuitive and miraculous. In relating the smallest anecdote his powers of humour and pathos were alternately brought into play. He would bring every little circumstance of a scene or event before the very vision with astonishing vivacity; eye, and voice, and gesture, all speaking and working to one end. Accustomed to consider men as men, to him it mattered little to whom he disburthened himself of the load of mental treasure that literally seemed

to oppress him, and to be ever seeking an utterance. I have known him enter into metaphysical disquisitions with a Cumberland peasant (be it not, however, forgotten that a Cumberland peasant is more or less an educated man), or (as it happened on one occasion, when we had taken shelter from the rain about the ingle-nook of a way-side hostel,) deliver what might be called an historical lecture to a party of Cumbrian farmers. Nor was his eloquence wholly lost even upon these less refined auditors. Their respect for his talents amounted to veneration; and even if they could not always follow him in his higher flights of speculation, a sort of consciousness that their being had been raised by communication with such a man remained to them, and it was with a sentiment of real veneration, in itself favourable to humanity, that they summed up the impression which Hartley's eloquence had made on them by the words-'Aye, but Mr. Coleridge talks fine.'

"How delightful, then, to more informed minds—what a valued privilege was Hartley's conversation! What a true enjoyment was a walk with him amidst the glorious scenery with which he was, and will long remain, identified! But it was not only by the qualities of his mind that Hartley was favourably known; he had a kind and affectionate heart, a kindly genial disposition, a fine temper and a peculiar generosity of sentiment; capable as he was of forcible and satiric painting, his word-pictures were ever free from offence, and always had the light of his own geniality over them;-never have I heard one word from him of personal bitterness. The keenest arrow in his speech was 'tipped with good nature.' Yet, in detailing any act of injustice, his eyes, for a brief moment, would flash fire, his very teeth be ground, and his whole frame moved.

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This freedom from all personality or narrow rancour caused that it might have been said emphatically of Hartley, that he had no enemies; the nature of his being was such as might more particularly be called 'attracting;' there was about him a child-like and confiding spirit, a oneness and

VOL. I.

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simplicity which bore witness to Wordsworth's wondrous penetration, when (in the lines to H. C., six years old, already alluded to,) he predicted that Hartley would retain,

"By individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.'

He was not one whom any could coldly see as a mere intellectual curiosity, but he was of those who (to use an expression of Mr. Southey's) 'make the eye sparkle' when we meet them. That his talents were appreciated by the lower orders in Cumberland I have intimated; but, more than this, he was deeply beloved amongst them. I have heard some of that class say, they would 'go through fire and water for Mr. Coleridge.' To all, indeed, of any class who ever were in familiar intercourse with Hartley, I may appeal to bear me out in the assertion, that his memory will not be less identified with the affections, than honoured by the intellect. How often will those who shall re-seek the shores of Windermere, after having wandered by them in his company, recall to mind his own beautiful lines on the death of Mr. Jackson of Lowwood Inn! How often will they look around on the lovely lake and landscape, almost wondering that every inanimate object should be as it was, and the hills in beauty rise' as before, while the presiding spirit that animated those scenes is fled! So will they feel until the strain with which Hartley himself concludes the touching memorial alluded to may haply recur to them, with the high truths which it teaches :

66

"The lake is still the same, the changeful skies
Change by a law which we may not control:
Sage Nature is not bound to sympathise
With every passion of a single soul.

Look not for sorrow in the changeful skies,
The mountain many-hued, or passive lake;

But look to Him, who sometimes will chastise

Those whom He loves, but never will forsake.'"

"Lausanne, Dec. 3, 1849."

Notwithstanding the difficulty, above noticed, of arranging by means of anecdotes and tabletalk, any sufficient idea of the living man, the two following letters appear to me peculiarly and accurately graphic. These contributions are the more valuable, as they exhibit my brother's portrait from two opposite points of view :—

"DEAR SIR,

“8 Beaufort-terrace, Seacombe, near Liverpool. "Oct. 29, 1850.

"I thank you for your very polite letter. I am glad that my hasty outlines should be of any use. Since sending them I have lit upon this sonnet, which is, I think, of too personal a nature to be brought before the public, though it has two very pretty lines. Another sonnet begins with'How strange the cold ungenial atmosphere,' written when we were together in 1841. I gave Hartley a copy of it some years after. He had quite forgotten it, and thought it good. I have mislaid the original, but I can vouch for the correctness of the copy from memory. Hartley never, or very seldom, remembered what he had written. The sonnet I have quoted he had so far forgotten, that, but for the style, he thought some one else might have composed it. It was his custom to put aside what he had written for some months, till the heat and excitement of composition had effervesced, and then he thought it was in a fair condition to criticise. He seldom altered. 'Strike the nail on the anvil,' was the advice he often gave to me. -'s poetry he called bakers' poetry, from its superfine polish. He never kneaded, or pounded his thoughts; they always came out cap-à-pie, like a troop in quick march. To see him brandishing his pen (the very recollection of which has made me sadly blot this page) and now and then beating time with his foot, and breaking out into a shout at any felicitous idea, was a thing never to

be forgotten. The common method of keeping up the velocity, by muttering and remuttering what is written, and using one line as a spring-board to reach another, was not the method which he adopted. His sonnets were all written instantaneously, and never, to my knowledge, occupied more than ten minutes; when he once challenged me to a match, and exceeded that time, he tore up the paper; and yet a rapid, continuous, oral discourse he told me he never accomplished. I remember him once taking a text, and betting me he would preach a sermon, but he broke down after the first sentence. 'I can write,' he said, 'why can't I speak?' His enthusiasm carried him off the rails. His genius was too uneven to run in a groove. His conversation was a continual sparkle; very irregular and unequal, yet, when worked up to a certain warmth, throwing out jets and gushes so radiant and hilarious that, like a Christmas fire, it inspirited and made happy everybody. I never saw him in a large party; it was chiefly at Fell's, and when he dined with two or three friends, that I met him. 'I hate fashionable parties,' he said, 'I feel very uncomfortable. The other night I was at one, and I shrank up, like a rat in a corner, and conceived the idea of jealousy. There was a beautiful little girl there that I should have liked to have talked to; but a fop came

"With crooks and cringes ;

Sleek were all his oily hinges,'

and I couldn't say a thing.' The description of the dance I remember as very beantiful.

"On his way to one of these parties he called on me, and I could not help saying, 'How well you look in a white neckcloth!' 'I wish you could see me sometimes,' he replied; 'if I had only black-silk stockings and shoe-buckles I should be quite a gentleman.' Those who had only seen him in the careless dress that he chose to adopt in the lanes-his trowsers, which were generally too long, doubled half-way up the leg, unbrushed, and often splashed; his hat brushed the wrong way, for he never used an umbrella; and his wild, unshaven

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