Those who had become acquainted with him in early life, and were enabled to watch the whole progress of his career from obscurity to the highest pinnacle of fame, have declared that his extraordinary talents never at any period excited greater astonishment and admiration than during his short residence at Bristol. His simplicity of mind and manner was also at this time truly delightful. He scarcely knew the names of our best authors, much less read any of their works; yet upon topics of moral philosophy and metaphysics he would enter into discussion with acknowledged scholars, and not only delight them with the native energy of his mind, but instruct them by the novelty and truth of his conceptions. Mr. Coleridge lately expressed to me the astonishment he felt, very shortly after his introduction to him, on hearing him maintain an argument upon some abstruse subject with a gentleman equally distinguished for the extent of his erudition, and for the talent of rendering it available for illustration;--the contrast was most striking--it was the fresh and native wild flower, opposed to the elaborate exotic of the _Hortus Siccus_! During this period he occasionally visited his friend Mr. Gregory Watt, at Birmingham; at which place his ambition was constantly excited by intercourse with congenial minds; and his letters to his mother and relations represent him as rejoicing in the success of his experiments, and as delighting in his association with kindred genius; but always casting a longing, lingering thought on the scenes of his boyhood, he spoke with joyful anticipation of the period at which he proposed to revisit his mother and family. That he still continued to regard the practice of physic as the great end and object of all his pursuits, is evident from one of these letters, written in 1799, in which he says, "Philosophy, Chemistry, and Medicine, are my profession." On the 1st of December 1799 he visited London for the first time, and remained about a fortnight; the friends with whom he associated upon this occasion were Coleridge, Southey, Gregory Watt, Underwood, James and John Tobin, Thomson, and Clayfield; all of whom vied with each other in their exertions to render his visit agreeable, conducting him to such persons and places as were deemed worthy of his notice.