Words to this effect, uttered with his usual solemnity, accompanied his gift; and, at the same time, he added, without any separate comment, a little pocket Virgil--the one edited by Alexander Cunningham, the bitter antagonist of Bentley--with a few annotations placed at the end. The act was in itself a solemn one; something like taking the veil for a nun--a final abjuration of the world's giddy agitations. And yet to him--already and for so long a time linked so feebly to anything that could be called the world, and living in a seclusion so profound--it was but as if an anchorite should retire from his outer to his inner cell. Me, however, it impressed powerfully in after years; because this act of self-dedication to the next world, and of parting from the intellectual luxuries of this, was also, in fact, though neither of us at the time knew it to be such, the scene of his final parting with myself. Immediately after his solemn speech, on presenting me with the "Odyssey," he sat down to the organ, sang a hymn or two, then chanted part of the liturgy, and, finally, at my request, performed the anthem so well known in the English Church service--the collect for the seventh Sunday after Trinity--(_Lord of all power and might, &c._) It was summer--about half after nine in the evening; the light of day was still lingering, and just strong enough to illuminate the Crucifixion, the Stoning of the Protomartyr, and other grand emblazonries of the Christian faith, which adorned the rich windows of his library. Knowing the early hours of his household, I now received his usual fervent adieus--which, without the words, had the sound and effect of a benediction--felt the warm pressure of his hand, saw dimly the outline of his venerable figure, more dimly his saintly countenance, and quitted that gracious presence, which, in this world, I was destined no more to revisit. The night was one in the first half of July 1802; in the second half of which, or very early in August, I quitted school clandestinely, and consequently the neighbourhood of Mr. Clowes. Some years after, I saw his death announced in all the public journals, as having occurred at Leamington Spa, then in the springtime of its medicinal reputation. Farewell, early friend! holiest of men whom it has been my lot to meet! Yes, I repeat, thirty-five years are past since then, and I have yet seen few men approaching to this venerable clergyman in paternal benignity--none certainly in child-like purity, apostolic holiness, or in perfect alienation of heart from the spirit of this fleshly world. I have delineated the habits and character of Mr. Clowes at some length, chiefly because a connexion is rare and interesting between parties so widely asunder in point of age--one a schoolboy, and the other almost an octogenarian, to quote a stanza from one of the most spiritual sketches of Wordsworth--