dislike. He admired the trees, and the meadows, and murmuring streams in
poetry. I have heard him repeat some of Keats's beautiful lines in the Ode
to the Nightingale, about the "pastoral eglantine," with great delight.
But that was another thing: that was an object in its proper place: that
was a piece of art. Long ago he had admitted that the mountains of
Cumberland were grand objects "to look at;" but (as he said) "the houses
in streets were the places to live in." I imagine that he would no more
have received the former as an equivalent for his own modest home, than he
would have accepted a portrait as a substitute for a friend. He was,
beyond all other men whom I have met, essentially metropolitan. He loved
"the sweet security of streets," as he says: "I would set up my tabernacle
there."

In the spring of 1834, Coleridge's health began to decline. Charles had
written to him (in reply) on the 14th April, at which time his friend had
been evidently unwell; for Lamb says that he is glad to see that he could
write so long a letter. He was indeed very ill; and no further personal
intercourse (I believe) took place between Charles and his old
schoolfellow. Coleridge lay ill for months; but his faculties seem to have
survived his bodily decay. He died on the 25th July, 1834; yet on the 5th
of that month he was able to discourse with his nephew on Dryden and
Barrow, on Lord Brook, and Fielding, and Richardson, without any apparent
diminution of judgment. Even on the 10th (a fortnight only before his
death) there was no symptom of speedy dissolution: he then said, "The
scenes of my early life have stolen into my mind like breezes blown from
the Spice Islands." Charles's sorrow was unceasing. "He was my fifty
years' old friend" (he says) "without a dissension. I cannot think without
an ineffectual reference to him." Lamb's frequent exclamations, "Coleridge
is dead! Coleridge is dead!" have been already noticed.