an alehouse comrade, that I
speak of him here, in order that I may testify how he was beloved and
cherished by the best people in his neighborhood. I can hardly speak
of him myself as a personal acquaintance; for I could not venture on
inviting him to my house. I saw what it was to others to be subject to
day-long visits from him, when he would ask for wine, and talk from
morning to night,--and a woman, solitary and busy, could not undertake
that sort of hospitality; but I saw how forbearing his friends were, and
why,--and I could sympathize in their regrets when he died. I met him
in company occasionally, and never saw him sober; but I have heard from
several common friends of the charm of his conversation, and the beauty
of his gentle and affectionate nature. He was brought into the District
when four years old; and it does not appear that he ever had a chance
allowed him of growing into a sane man. Wordsworth used to say that
Hartley's life's failure arose mainly from his having grown up "wild
as the breeze,"--delivered over, without help or guardianship, to the
vagaries of an imagination which overwhelmed all the rest of him. There
was a strong constitutional likeness to his father, evident enough to
all; but no pains seem to have been taken on any hand to guard him from
the snare, or to invigorate his will, and aid him in self-discipline.
The great catastrophe, the ruinous blow, which rendered him hopeless, is
told in the Memoir; but there are particulars which help to account for
it. Hartley had spent his school-days under a master as eccentric as he
himself ever became. The Rev. John Dawes of Ambleside was one of the
oddities that may be found in the remote places of modern England. He
had no idea of restraint, for himself or his pupils; and when they
arrived, punctually or not, for morning school, they sometimes found the
door shut, and chalked with "Gone a-hunting," or "Gone a-fishing," or
gone away somewhere or other. Then Hartley would sit down under the
bridge, or in the shadow of the wood, or lie on the grass on the
hill-side, and tell tales to his schoolfellows for hours. His mind was
developed by the conversation of his father and his father's friends;
and he himself had a great friendship with Professor Wilson, who always
stood by him with a pitying love. He had this kind of discursive
education, but no discipline; and when he went to college, he was at the
mercy of any who courted his affection, intoxica