meditating the memoir of
her mother, that work of filial duty which three years ago she
accomplished with a grace and propriety beyond all praise.

Of my host, Mr. Derwent Coleridge, and of Mrs. Coleridge, my dear and
honored friends of so many years, I must not permit myself to speak. I
may note only the brilliant conversational power of Mr. Coleridge, and
the fact that as I listen to him I perfectly understand the marvelous
gifts in this way of his father, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Again and
again I have been held as if under a spell by the flowing stream
of his delightful monologue. He had been the friend in boyhood of
Macaulay, and almost the first published words of the afterward famous
writer had appeared in conjunction with a like youthful effort of
Derwent Coleridge. Mr. Coleridge has been the biographer of Winthrop
Praed and the editor of his poems, and only a year ago he published
a touching tribute to John Moultrie. These two poets were also the
companions in youth of Macaulay, and each was in a way a stimulus to
the others in their first intellectual efforts. My place at the table
was just opposite to Macaulay, and I need not say with what keen
interest I looked at him and watched his countenance as he became
animated in conversation. His face was round, and his complexion was
colorless, one might almost say pallid: his hair, which appeared to
have been of a brownish hue, had become almost white. He was no doubt
then beginning to break in health, and perhaps this, which could only
be called a premature decay, was the penalty he was at length paying
for the years he had spent in India. His neck was short, and his
figure was short and ungainly. His eye had a quick flash, and his
change of expression was rapid; his head, too, had a quick movement;
and altogether there was a look of vivacity which showed that his
intellect was as keen as ever. He was always ready to speak, whatever
the subject, but he showed no disposition to take all the talk. There
was no moment of pause in the flowing after-dinner discussions, for
our host, as well as several of his guests, was abundantly able to
hold his own with this marvelous and every way delightful talker--this
prince in the domain of London social life.

There was some conversation about Nollekens the sculptor, whose
inordinate love of money was such a curious blemish in his character.
Macaulay told one or two stories illustrating his parsimony. Then he
came to speak