perambulating the romantic regions of Cumberland and Westmoreland, with
my friend, John E. Bowman, Esq., F.L.S. We had been told that he retired
from his workbench on evenings to the "Blue Bell on the side," for the
purpose of reading the news. To this place we repaired, and readily
found ourselves in the presence of the great man. For my part, so warm
was my enthusiasm, that I could have rushed into his arms, as into
those of a parent or benefactor. He was sitting by the fire in a large
elbow-chair, smoking. He received us most kindly, and in a very few
minutes we felt as old friends. He appeared a large, athletic man, then
in his seventy-first year, with thick, bushy, black hair, retaining his
sight so completely as to read aloud rapidly the smallest type of a
newspaper. He was dressed in very plain, brown clothes, but of good
quality, with large flaps to his waistcoat, grey woollen stockings,
and large buckles. In his under-lip he had a prodigious large quid of
tobacco, and he leaned on a very thick oaken cudgel, which, I afterwards
learned, he cut in the woods of Hawthornden. His broad, bright, and
benevolent countenance at one glance, bespoke powerful intellect and
unbounded good-will, with a very visible sparkle of merry wit. The
discourse at first turned on politics (for the paper was in his hand,)
on which he at once openly avowed himself a warm whig, but clearly
without the slightest wish to provoke opposition. I at length succeeded
in turning the conversation into the fields of natural history, but
not till after he had scattered forth a profusion of the most humorous
anecdotes, that would baffle the most retentive memory to enumerate,
and defy the most witty to depict. I succeeded by mentioning an error
in one of his works; for which, when I had convinced him, he thanked
me, and took the path in conversation we wished. In many instances,
I must remark, though frequently succeeding to the broadest humour, his
countenance and conversation assumed the emitted flashes and features
of absolutely the highest sublimity; indeed, to an excitement of awful