that his transcendent powers of intellect were extinguished before
they had bestowed on them their choicest treasures. To his friends his
loss is irremediable: the wise, the brave, the gentle, is gone for
ever! He is to them as a bright vision, whose radiant track, left
behind in the memory, is worth all the realities that society can
afford. Before the critics contradict me, let them appeal to any one
who had ever known him. To see him was to love him: and his presence,
like Ithuriel's spear, was alone sufficient to disclose the falsehood
of the tale which his enemies whispered in the ear of the ignorant
world.

His life was spent in the contemplation of Nature, in arduous study,
or in acts of kindness and affection. He was an elegant scholar and a
profound metaphysician; without possessing much scientific knowledge,
he was unrivalled in the justness and extent of his observations on
natural objects; he knew every plant by its name, and was familiar
with the history and habits of every production of the earth; he could
interpret without a fault each appearance in the sky; and the varied
phenomena of heaven and earth filled him with deep emotion. He made
his study and reading-room of the shadowed copse, the stream, the
lake, and the waterfall. Ill health and continual pain preyed upon his
powers; and the solitude in which we lived, particularly on our first
arrival in Italy, although congenial to his feelings, must frequently
have weighed upon his spirits; those beautiful and affecting "Lines
written in Dejection near Naples" were composed at such an interval;
but, when in health, his spirits were buoyant and youthful to an
extraordinary degree.

Such was his love for Nature that every page of his poetry is
associated, in the minds of his friends, with the loveliest scenes of