From his own account of the matter, and from the letters that
passed between them, some of which he has published in his Memoirs, it
is difficult to acquit him of blame, and not to wish that he had endured
with more patience the foibles of a woman, who, though irreproachable in
her own conduct, was more indulgent than she need have been to his
frailties. He appears, however, to have been anxious for her happiness
after they were separated. She died in London in 1797, and received from
her husband, the empty honours of a funeral sermon and an epitaph. He
was loth to quit his home except on some errand of friendship, when he
was ever ready to run to the Land's End. I remember his quoting to me
the following line out of Aeschylus, on the advantage of a master's
presence in his own family.

[Greek: "Omma gar domon nomixo despton paronsian".]

He seems to have taken delight in the instruction of youth; besides his
own boy, he undertook to educate gratuitously two sons of his friend,
Mr. Carwardine, and one of his neighbour Lord Egremont. On the death of
Warton, he declined some advances that were made him through his
friends, towards an offer of the laureatship. Nothing but a high sense
of independence could have prompted this refusal; for, though no
courtier, he was not wanting in loyalty; and the stipend would have been
a welcome addition to an income which barely sufficed his own moderate
wants and his liberal contributions to the necessities of others.

He was not more fortunate in a second marriage than he had been in his
first. The vain confidence which he placed in his good stars on this
occasion shall be told in his own words, which are as follows:

While he was deeply engaged in his biographical compositions he used to
say, 'I have not leisure to wander from my hermitage, and look into the
world in quest of a wife; but I feel a strong persuasion that if it is
really good for me to venture once more on marriage,

that step
Of deepest hazard and of highest hope,

my kind stars will conduct to my cell some compassionate fair one, fond
of books and retirement, who may be willing to enliven, with the songs
of tenderness, the solitude of a poetical hermit.'

Such was the frame of mind in the recluse when an incident occurred,
that gradually seemed to accomplish a completion of his prophecy. This
incident was a visit from an old ecclesiastical acquaintance, attended
by two young ladies, Mary and Harriet Welfor