seen or dreamed. At gentlemen's
tables, it was a chance how he might talk,--sublimely, sweetly, or with
a want of tact which made sad confusion. In the midst of the great
black-frost at the close of 1848, he was at a small dinner-party at
the house of a widow lady, about four miles from his lodgings. During
dinner, some scandal was talked about some friends of his to whom he
was warmly attached. He became excited on their behalf,--took Champagne
before he had eaten enough, and, before the ladies left the table, was
no longer master of himself. His host, a very young man, permitted some
practical joking: brandy was ordered, and given to the unconscious
Hartley; and by eleven o'clock he was clearly unfit to walk home alone.
His hostess sent her footman with him, to see him home. The man took him
through Ambleside, and then left him to find his way for the other two
miles. The cold was as severe as any ever known in this climate; and it
was six in the morning when his landlady heard some noise in the porch,
and found Hartley stumbling in. She put him to bed, put hot bricks to
his feet, and tried all the proper means; and in the middle of the day
he insisted on getting up and going out. He called at the house of a
friend, Dr. S----, near Ambleside. The kind physician scolded him for
coming out, sent for a carriage, took him home, and put him to bed. He
never rose again, but died on the 6th of January, 1849. The young host
and the old hostess have followed him, after deeply deploring that
unhappy day.

It was sweet, as well as sorrowful, to see how he was mourned.
Everybody, from his old landlady, who cared for him like a mother, to
the infant-school children, missed Hartley Coleridge. I went to his
funeral at Grasmere. The rapid Rotha rippled and dashed over the stones
beside the churchyard; the yews rose dark from the faded grass of the
graves; and in mighty contrast to both, Helvellyn stood, in wintry
silence, and sheeted with spotless snow. Among the mourners Wordsworth
was conspicuous, with his white hair and patriarchal aspect. He had
no cause for painful emotions on his own account; for he had been a
faithful friend to the doomed victim who was now beyond the reach of his
tempters. While there was any hope that stern remonstrance might rouse
the feeble will and strengthen the suffering conscience to relieve
itself, such remonstrance was pressed; and when the case was past hope,
Wordsworth's door was ever open to his