Mr. Coleridge being now comfortably settled at Clevedon, I shall there
for the present leave him to write verses on his beloved Sarah, while in
the mean time, I introduce the reader to an ingenious young barrister
whom I had known some years previously under the following peculiar
circumstances.

William Gilbert, author of the "Hurricane," was the son of the eminent
philanthropist, Nathaniel Gilbert, of Antigua, who is usually noticed as
"The excellent Gilbert who first set an example to the planters, of
giving religious instruction to the slaves." In the year 1787, a want of
self-control having become painfully evident, he was placed by his
friends in the Asylum of Mr. Richard Henderson at Hanham, near Bristol,
when I first knew him. He occasionally accompanied John Henderson into
Bristol, on one of which occasions he introduced him to my brother and
myself, as the "Young Counsellor!" I spent an afternoon with them, not
readily to be forgotten. Many and great talkers have I known, but William
Gilbert, at this time, exceeded them all. His brain seemed to be in a
state of boiling effervescence, and his tongue, with inconceivable
rapidity, passed from subject to subject, but with an incoherence that
was to me, at least, marvellous. For two hours he poured forth a verbal
torrent, which was only suspended by sheer physical exhaustion.

John Henderson must have perceived a thousand fallacies in his
impassioned harangue; but he allowed them all to pass uncommented upon,
for he knew there was no fighting with a vapour. He continued in the
Asylum about a year, when his mind being partially restored, his friends
removed him, and he wholly absented himself from Bristol, till the year
1796, when he re-appeared in that city.

Being so interesting a character, I felt pleasure in introducing him to