No dreams last night of the dead, nor the living; so--I am "firm as the
marble, founded as the rock," [1] till the next earthquake.
Ward's dinner went off well. There was not a disagreeable person
there--unless _I_ offended any body, which I am sure I could not by
contradiction, for I said little, and opposed nothing. Sharpe [2] (a man
of elegant mind, and who has lived much with the best--Fox, Horne Tooke,
Windham, Fitzpatrick, and all the agitators of other times and tongues,)
told us the particulars of his last interview with Windham, [3] a few
days before the fatal operation which sent "that gallant spirit to
aspire the skies." [4] Windham,--the first in one department of oratory
and talent, whose only fault was his refinement beyond the intellect of
half his hearers,--Windham, half his life an active participator in the
events of the earth, and one of those who governed nations,--_he_
regretted,--and dwelt much on that regret, that "he had not entirely
devoted himself to literature and science!!!" His mind certainly would
have carried him to eminence there, as elsewhere;--but I cannot
comprehend what debility of that mind could suggest such a wish. I, who
have heard him, cannot regret any thing but that I shall never hear him
again. What! would he have been a plodder? a metaphysician?--perhaps a
rhymer? a scribbler? Such an exchange must have been suggested by
illness. But he is gone, and Time "shall not look upon his like again."
[5]
I am tremendously in arrear with my letters,--except to----, and to her
my thoughts overpower me:--my words never compass them.
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