fact of his work on
Moral and Political Philosophy being made a text-book in our
Universities was a disgrace to the national character.' We parted at
the six-mile stone; and I returned homeward pensive but much pleased.
I had met with unexpected notice from a person whom I believed to have
been prejudiced against me. 'Kind and affable to me had been his
condescension, and should be honoured ever with suitable regard.' He
was the first poet I had known, and he certainly answered to that
inspired name. I had heard a great deal of his powers of conversation,
and was not disappointed. In fact, I never met with any thing at all
like them, either before or since. I could easily credit the accounts
which were circulated of his holding forth to a large party of ladies
and gentlemen, an evening or two before, on the Berkeleian Theory,
when he made the whole material universe look like a transparency of
fine words; and another story (which I believe he has somewhere told
himself) of his being asked to a party at Birmingham, of his smoking
tobacco and going to sleep after dinner on a sofa, where the company
found him to their no small surprise, which was increased to wonder
when he started up of a sudden, and rubbing his eyes, looked about
him, and launched into a three hours' description of the third
heaven, of which he had had a dream, very different from Mr. Southey's
Vision of Judgement, and also from that other Vision of Judgement,
which Mr. Murray, the Secretary of the Bridge Street Junto, has taken
into his especial keeping.

On my way back, I had a sound in my ears, it was the voice of Fancy: I
had a light before me, it was the face of Poetry. The one still
lingers there, the other has not quitted my side! Coleridge in truth
met me half-way on the ground of philosophy, or I should not have been
won over to his imaginative creed. I had an uneasy, pleasurable
sensation all the time, till I was to visit him. During those months
the chill breath of winter gave me a welcoming; the vernal air was
balm and inspiration to me. The golden sunsets, the silver star of
evening, lighted me on my way to new hopes and prospects. _I was to
visit Coleridge in the Spring._ This circumstance was never absent
from my thoughts, and mingled with all my feelings. I wrote to him at
the time proposed, and received an answer postponing my intended visit
for a week or two, but very cordially urging me to complete my promise
then. This delay did not