every one here except our sister: but I have witnessed one revolution in
a foreign country, and I have not courage to think of facing another in
my own. Farewell. God bless you again.

Your affectionate Brother,
W.W.[127]

[127] _Memoirs_, ii. 259-60.

80. _Illness of Sister: Reform: Poems: Oxford and Cambridge, &c._

LETTER TO PROFESSOR HAMILTON, DUBLIN.

Moresby, June 25. 1832.

MY DEAR MR. HAMILTON,

Your former letter reached me in due time; your second, from Cambridge,
two or three days ago. I ought to have written to you long since, but
really I have for some time, from private and public causes of sorrow
and apprehension, been in a great measure deprived of those genial
feelings which, thro' life, have not been so much accompaniments of my
character, as vital principles of my existence.

My dear sister has been languishing more than seven months in a
sick-room, nor dare I or any of her friends entertain a hope that her
strength will ever be restored; and the course of public affairs, as I
think I told you before, threatens, in my view, destruction to the
institutions of the country; an event which, whatever may rise out of it
hereafter, cannot but produce distress and misery for two or three
generations at least. In any times I am but at best a poor and
unpunctual correspondent, yet I am pretty sure you would have heard from
me but for this reason; therefore let the statement pass for an apology
as far as you think fit.

The verses called forth by your love and the disappointment that
followed I have read with much pleasure, tho' grieved that you should
have suffered so much; as poetry they derive an interest from your
philosophical pursuits, which could not but recommend the verses even to
indifferent readers, and must give them in the eyes of your friends a
great charm. The style appears to me good, and the general flow of the
versification harmonious; but you deal somewhat more in dactylic endings
and identical terminations than I am accustomed to think legitimate.
Sincerely do I congratulate you upon being able to continue your
philosophical pursuits under such a pressure of personal feeling.

It gives me much pleasure that you and Coleridge have met, and that you
were not disappointed in the conversation of a man from whose writings
you had previously drawn so much delight and improvement. He and my
beloved sister are the two b