" But henceforth he recovers for us a certain
measure of his long-lost dignity, and a figure which should always
have been "meet for the reverence of the hearth" in the great
household of English literature, but which had far too long and too
deeply sunk below it, becomes once more a worthy and even a venerable
presence. At evening-time it was light.
FOOTNOTES
1. Coleridge made the acquaintance of this gentleman, who became his
enthusiastic disciple, in 1818. His chief interest for us is the fact
that for the next seven years he was Coleridge's correspondent.
Personally, he was a man of little judgment or critical discrimination,
and his sense of the ridiculous may be measured by the following
passage. Speaking of the sweetness of Charles Lamb's smile, he says
that "there is still one man living, a stockbroker, who has that
smile," and adds: "To those who wish to see the only thing left on
earth, _if it is still left_, of Lamb, his best and most beautiful
remain--his smile, I will indicate its possessor, Mr.---- of Throgmorton
Street." How the original "possessor" of this apparently assignable
security would have longed to "feel Mr. Allsop's head"!
CHAPTER IX
Life at Highgate-Renewed activity-Publications and re-publications--The
_Biographia Literaria_--The lectures of 1818-Coleridge as a
Shakespearian critic.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213