26 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, n 



B. 1 had a letter from my Joe yesterday. He asks whether 

 Papa does not mean to come and see him before the holidays, 

 as many of the boy's fathers are coming to see their sons. He 

 says the holidays will begin next Wednesday six weeks, and 

 if we fetch him a week before, the five weeks will soon run 

 out ; and I wish you would write to Mr Coleridge to mention 

 the matter of his coming home a week before they break up, 

 and then I can tell my Joe of it, which will make him very 

 happy. I had nearly resolved upon setting off to see him 

 to-morrow, but I have thought better of it. The journey so 

 long, the time of being with him so short, and the pain of part- 

 ing considered, I think it will be as well not to think of seeing 

 him before the holidays. 



Tom Wedgwood died at Eastbury, near Gunville, where 

 he lived with his mother, on 10th July, 1805, after much 

 suffering. 



Bessy wrote to her sisters (July, 1805): "Indeed the 

 more I think of him the more his character rises in my 

 opinion; he really was too good for this world. Such a 

 crowd of feelings and remembrances fill my mind while I am 

 recalling all his past kindnesses to me and mine, and to all his 

 acquaintances, that I feel myself quite unfit to make his 

 panegyric, but I trust my children will ever remember him 

 with veneration as an honour to the family to which he 

 belonged. . . . 



" Eastbury was always rather gloomy in my eyes, 

 now it looks the picture of Melancholy, and poor Tom's 

 empty rooms I cannot look upon without a painful serre- 

 ment de c&ur, like himself, hid behind the high laurels, 

 melancholy and retired. His forsaken windows remind 

 me continually of himself, and I can hardly forbear expect- 

 ing to see him walking out in his way, throwing one foot 

 before the other in a despairing manner as if he did not care 

 whether the other ever followed. He was laid in the Vault 

 here on Tuesday se'ennight. . ." 



After Tom Wedgwood's death the Josiah Wedgwoods left 

 Dorset. Maer HaU was bought about 1 805, but they did not 

 inhabit it fully till 1807. In 1812 they seem to have moved 

 for a time to Etruria, probably for the sake of economy. 



1 Elizabeth, the eldest child. Joe, now aged ten, was at school at 

 Ottery St Mary with Mr George Coleridge, brother of the poet. He 

 was a delicate little boy, and I think it was hie first year at school. 



