Last Sunday I took a walk towards Highgate and in the lane that winds by the side of Lord Mansfield's park I met Mr Green our Demonstrator at Guy's[8] in conversation with Coleridge--I joined them, after enquiring by a look whether it would be agreeable--I walked with him at his alderman-after-dinner pace for near two miles I suppose. In those two Miles he broached a thousand things--let me see if I can give you a list--Nightingales, Poetry--on Poetical Sensation--Metaphysics--Different genera and species of Dreams--Nightmare--a dream accompanied with a sense of touch--single and double touch--a dream related--First and second consciousness--the difference explained between will and Volition--so say metaphysicians from a want of smoking the second consciousness--Monsters--the Kraken--Mermaids--Southey believes in them--Southey's belief too much diluted--a Ghost story--Good morning--I heard his voice as he came towards me--I heard it as he moved away--I had heard it all the interval--if it may be called so. He was civil enough to ask me to call on him at Highgate. It is amusing to note how the time and distance covered by his own encyclopaedic volubility shrank afterwards in Coleridge's memory. In his _Table Talk_ taken down thirteen years later his account of the meeting is recorded as follows (with the name of his companion left blank: I fill it in from Keats's letter): 'A loose, slack, not well-dressed youth met Mr Green and myself in a lane near Highgate. Green knew him, and spoke. It was Keats. He was introduced to me, and stayed a minute or so. After he had left us a little way, he came back, and said, "Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having pressed your hand!" "There is death in that hand," I said to Green, when Keats was gone; yet this was, I believe, before the consumption showed itself distinctly.' The story of Coleridge's observation after the handshake is no doubt exact: the 'not well-dressed' in his description of Keats may very well be so too: but the 'loose' and 'slack' applied to his appearance must have been drawn from the sage's inward eye, as all accounts are agreed as to Keats's well-knit compactness of person. One cannot but regret that Keats failed to follow up the introduction by going, as invited, to see Coleridge at Highgate: but in all cases save those of Hunt and Haydon, his contact with distinguished seniors seems thus to have stopped short at kindly and respectful acquaintance and not to have been pushed to intimacy. Another, somewhat divergent, account of the meeting taken down, also from Coleridge's lips, by Mr John Frere three years earlier has only lately been published. Its inaccuracy in details is evident, but there is much sense as well as kindness in Coleridge's remarks on the reviews and their effect:--