"In speaking of Coleridge personally and as a member of her family Mrs. Gillman's testimony was to this effect: "'I do assure you that through all the years he lived with us, I do not remember once to have seen him fretful or out of humour; he was the same kindly, affectionate being from morning till evening, and from January till December. He delighted to reconcile little differences, and to make all things go smoothly and happily. He was always teaching the Beautiful and the Good, while his own daily life was the best illustration of the good and beautiful which he taught. You know how the world sometimes misrepresented and ill-treated him, and he felt it now and then very keenly; but he bore it all with the sweetest patience. As I have said, I never saw him in what could be called an ill-temper during the nineteen years he was under our roof,--never! The servants in the house idolized him; and when he died it seemed as if their hearts would break. We all had one feeling toward him: we all loved him alike, each in our own way; and we all alike wept when he died. Love was the law of his nature. He clothed his friends, to be sure, in the colours of his own fancy, and sometimes, perhaps, the colours were too bright; but it was his goodness of heart, quite as much as his imagination, that was at fault.'" FOOTNOTES: [126] Great as was the shock my friend sustained from the unkind conduct of the gentlemen here alluded to, it is to me a great solace to be assured that he forgave them fully and entirely. [Allsop.] [127] [Perhaps Wordsworth.] [128] To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned Energic Reason and a shaping mind, The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part, And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart. Sloth jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand. I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows, A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish dose. _Is this piled earth our Being's passless mound? Tell me, cold grave! is Death with poppies crowned? Tired sentinel! 'mid fitful starts I nod, And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod._ [129] [The initials are probably Allsop's.] [130] [Letter CCXXXI is our 206.] [131] [Letters CCXXXII-CCXXXIII follow 207.] [132] [Letter CCXXXIV follows 210.] [133] [Letters CCXXXV-CCXXXVIII follow 213.] [134] [1822-23.] CHAPTER XXVIII THE NEW ACADEME