Hartley Coleridge was not like the Duke of Wellington.[24] Children are urged by the example of the great statesman and warrior just departed—not indeed to neglect ‘their book’ as he did—but to be industrious and thrifty; to ‘always perform business,’ to ‘beware of procrastination,’ to ‘NEVER fail to do their best:’ good ideas, as may be ascertained by referring to the masterly despatches on the Mahratta transactions—‘great events,’ as the preacher continues, ‘which exemplify the efficacy of diligence even in regions where the very advent of our religion is as yet but partially made known.’ But ‘What a wilderness were this sad world, If man were always man and never child!’ And it were almost a worse wilderness if there were not some, to relieve the dull monotony of activity, who are children through life; who act on wayward impulse, and whose will has never come; who toil not and who spin not; who always have ‘fair Eden’s simpleness:’ and of such was Hartley Coleridge. ‘Don’t you remember,’ writes Gray to Horace Walpole, when Lord B. and Sir H. C. and Viscount D., who are now great statesmen, were little dirty boys playing at cricket? For my part I do not feel one bit older or wiser now than I did then.’ For as some apply their minds to what is next them, and labour ever, and attain to governing the Tower, and entering the Trinity House,—to commanding armies, and applauding pilots,—so there are also some who are ever anxious to-day about what ought only to be considered to-morrow; who never get on; whom the earth neglects, and whom tradesmen little esteem; who are where they were; who cause grief, and are loved; that are at once a by-word and a blessing; who do not live in life, and it seems will not die in death: and of such was Hartley Coleridge. A curious instance of poetic anticipation was in this instance vouchsafed to Wordsworth. When Hartley was six years old, he addressed to him these verses, perhaps the best ever written on a real and visible child:— ‘O thou, whose fancies from afar are brought, Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel And fittest to unutterable thought The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; Thou fairy voyager, that dost float In such clear water that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream; O blessed vision, happy child, Thou art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. ... O too industrious folly! O vain and causeless melancholy! Nature will either end thee quite, Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee by individual right A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks.’