Latin verse from the Georgics, "O Fortunatos," &c., but generally he
showed himself careless about Greeks and Romans; and when (as Mr. Moxon
states) "a traveller brought him some acorns from an ilex that grew over
the tomb of Virgil, he valued them so little that he threw them at the
hackney coachmen as they passed by his window."

I have been much impressed by Lamb's letters to Bernard Barton, which are
numerous, and which, taken altogether, are equal to any which he has
written. The letters to Coleridge do not exhibit so much care or thought;
nor those to Wordsworth or Manning, nor to any others of his intellectual
equals. These correspondents could think and speculate for themselves, and
they were accordingly left to their own resources. "The Volsces have much
corn." But Bernard Barton was in a different condition; he was poor. His
education had been inferior, his range of reading and thinking had been
very confined, his knowledge of the English drama being limited to
Shakespeare and Miss Baillie. He seems, however, to have been an amiable
man, desirous of cultivating the power, such as it was, which he
possessed; and Lamb therefore lavished upon him--the poor Quaker clerk of
a Suffolk banker--all that his wants or ambition required; excellent
worldly counsel, sound thoughts upon literature and art, critical advice
on his own verses, letters which in their actual value surpass the wealth
of many more celebrated collections. Lamb's correspondence with Barton,
whom he had first known in 1822, continued until his death.

In 1830 (September 18th) Hazlitt died. It is unnecessary to enter into any
enumeration of his remarkable qualities. They were known to all his
friends, and to some of his enemies. In Sir Edward Lytton's words, "He
went down to the dust without having won the crown for which he so bravely
struggled. He who had done so much for the propagation of thought, left no
stir upon the surface when he sank." I will not in this place attempt to