to pronounce it far superior to S * *'s on the same subject, or to
the merits of the new Chancellor. It is evidently the production of
a man of taste, and a poet, though I should not be willing to say
it was fully equal to what might be expected from the author of
'_Horæ Ionicæ_.' I thank you for it, and that is more than I would
do for any other Ode of the present day.

"I am very sensible of your good wishes, and, indeed, I have need
of them. My whole life has been at variance with propriety, not to
say decency; my circumstances are become involved; my friends are
dead or estranged, and my existence a dreary void. In Matthews I
have lost my 'guide, philosopher, and friend;' in Wingfield a
friend only, but one whom I could have wished to have preceded in
his long journey.

"Matthews was indeed an extraordinary man; it has not entered into
the heart of a stranger to conceive such a man: there was the stamp
of immortality in all he said or did;--and now what is he? When we
see such men pass away and be no more--men, who seem created to
display what the Creator _could make_ his creatures, gathered into
corruption, before the maturity of minds that might have been the
pride of posterity, what are we to conclude? For my own part, I am
bewildered. To me he was much, to Hobhouse every thing.--My poor
Hobhouse doted on Matthews. For me, I did not love quite so much as
I honoured him; I was indeed so sensible of his infinite
superiority, that though I did not envy, I stood in awe of it. He,
Hobhouse, Davies, and myself, formed a coterie of our own at
Cambridge and elsewhere. Davies is a wit and man of the world, and
feels as much as such a character can do; but not as Hobhouse has
been affected. Davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us