reversal of the wheel of fortune, but gifts from the very hand of
the Father--to purify a noble soul from the dross that was mingled
with it; to give a great man the opportunity of living in a way
that should furnish an eternal and imperishable example.

I do not believe that in the whole of literature there is a more
noble and beautiful document of its kind than the diary of these
later years. The simplicity, the sincerity of the man stand out on
every page. There are no illusions about himself or his work. He
hears that Southey has been speaking of him and his misfortunes
with tears, and he says plainly that such tears would be impossible
to himself in a parallel case; that his own sympathy has always
been practical rather than emotional; his own tendency has been to
help rather than to console. Again, speaking of his own writings,
he says that he realises that if there is anything good about his
poetry or prose, "It is a hurried frankness of composition, which
pleases soldiers, sailors, and young people of bold and active
disposition." He adds, indeed, a contemptuous touch to the above,
which he was great enough to have spared: "I have been no sigher in
shades--no writer of


Songs and sonnets and rustical roundelays
Framed on fancies and whistled on reeds."


A few days later, speaking of Thomas Campbell, the poet, he says
that "he has suffered by being too careful a corrector of his
work."