His serene good sense asserted its strength, at no time and in no way, so signally as in his absolute emancipation from this transient enslavement; and in his sedate statement of the fact--true in so many cases where the victim is too stupid to know it or too timorous to own it--that, “if it drew me out of some vices, it also prevented the growth of many virtues.” As is usual, however, with the amatory infirmity, he suffered from that slight and superficial relapse, later in life, to which I have already referred. In his daily goings to and fro in Islington, he used to meet the lovely Quakeress, to whom he never spoke, and whom he adored silently and from afar. He only knew that she was named Hester, and it is her name which he has made immortal and her sweet memory which he has embalmed imperishably in his exquisite verses: “When maidens such as Hester die.” And his first, his serious, affair may have justified its existence by recalling to us his well-known wish that no incident, no untoward accident even, of his life might have been reversed. So it is, that in his “New Year’s Eve” he avers that “it is better that I should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall to the fair hair and fairer eyes of Alice W----n, than that so passionate a love-adventure should be lost.” III. “I am going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would be agreeable, at Our Lady’s next feast. I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a-tiptoe) over the Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King’s Bench Walk, in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out, as often as I desire to hold free converse with any immortal mind--for my present lodgings resemble a minister’s levée, I have so increased my acquaintance (as they call ’em) since I have resided in town.” In this letter, written to Manning early in 1801, three significant points call for comment. The phrase “in town,” referring to his residence in Southampton Buildings, shows how his previous abode in Islington was then in the country, and how the squalid houses of the foul Chapel Street of to-day have supplanted those pleasant cottages set in gardens, with rural lanes cutting the fields between. His curt reference to their “having received a hint” to move, proves how pitifully they were “marked,” as he had already put it, and how soon even the kindly Gutch withdrew his offer of shelter. The few words, “I have so increased my acquaintance” give a wide suggestion of the already growing attraction of this odd, original young character to all bright minds and sweet natures with whom he came in contact.