His information is much extended, the _great_ qualities of
his mind heightened and better disciplined, but alas! his health is
much weaker, and his great failing, procrastination, or the
incapability of acting agreeably to his wish and will, much
increased."
Whether the promised visit to Ottery St. Mary was ever paid there is
no record to show, but at the end of July 1807 we again hear of the
Coleridges at the house of a Mr. Chubb, a descendant of the Deist, at
Bridgewater; and here it was that De Quincey, after having endeavoured
in vain to run the poet to earth at Stowey, where he had been staying
with Mr. Poole, and whence he had gone to pay a short visit to Lord
Egmont, succeeded in obtaining an introduction to him. The
characteristic passage in which the younger man describes their
first meeting is too long for quotation, and it is to be hoped too well
known to need it: his vivid and acute criticism of Coleridge's
conversation may be more appropriately cited hereafter. His evidence as
to the conjugal relations of Coleridge and his wife has been already
discussed; and the last remaining point of interest about this
memorable introduction is the testimony which it incidentally affords
to De Quincey's genuine and generous instinct of hero-worship, and to
the depth of Coleridge's pecuniary embarrassments.
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