Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2)Howitt, William
General
Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Howitt, William
Literary landmarks -- Great Britain; Poets, English -- Homes and haunts
operation was completed, the clock struck nine, the hour at which the
bishop punctually breakfasted. Roused as from a revery, he instantly
left the barber's shop, and in his haste forgetting his wig, appeared
at the breakfast-table, where the bishop and his party had assembled.
The bishop, well acquainted with his absent manners, courteously and
playfully requested him to walk into an adjoining room, and give his
opinion of a mirror which had arrived from London a few days
previously, and which disclosed to his astonished guest the
consequence of his haste and forgetfulness.
The old gentleman, Coleridge also related, had to take a journey on
some professional business, which would detain him from home for three
or four days: his good wife, in her care and watchfulness, had packed
a few things in a small trunk, and gave them in charge to her husband,
with strong injunctions that he was to put on a clean shirt every day.
On his return home, his wife went to search for his linen, when, to
her dismay, it was not in the trunk. A closer search, however,
discovered that the vicar had strictly obeyed her injunctions, and had
put on daily a clean shirt, but had forgotten to remove the one
underneath. This might have been the pleasantest and most portable
mode of carrying half-a-dozen shirts in winter, but not so in the
dog-days.
The poor idolized him and paid him the greatest reverence; and among
other causes, for the odd one of quoting the original Hebrew liberally
in his sermons. They felt themselves particularly favored by his
giving them "the very words the Spirit spoke in;" the agricultural
population flocked in from the neighborhood with great eagerness to
hear him on this account; and such an opinion did they acquire of his
learning, that they regarded his successor with much contempt, because
he addressed them in simple English. This worthy old man died when
Coleridge was about seven years old only.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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