282 THE LAST SUMMERS AND WINTERS. 



had not been asked to write the life of the Rydalian 

 ] aureate. 



" Another ramble was to Highgate and Hampstead. 

 Much delighted was he to see Mr Gillman's house, now 

 occupied by that good surgeon and kind man, Mr Brendon. 

 He viewed with interest the scenes where Coleridge used 

 to meditate and pour out the treasures of his gifted mind 

 — the library, with its shelves now removed — the room 

 where he usually received visitors, on one day Sir Hum- 

 phrey Davy, on another Basil Montagu, or Edward Irving 

 and Thomas Chalmers, perhaps Thomas Carlyle — the beau- 

 tifully sloping garden, with its northern wall one mass of 

 flowering shrubs, and where might be heard the nightin- 

 gales as they sang in the trees near Ken Wood. With all 

 this he was delighted, and I remember how he never 

 deposited in the passage that unfailing stick, but took it 

 with him from room to room. We left, aud crossed the 

 fields to Hampstead — those fields where John Linnell, the 

 Poussin of our day, used to study, when Blake used to visit 

 him thirty years ago ; and after a view of Harrow from 

 the Heath, we were glad to get home to Kentish Town 

 in time for a hearty dinner- tea. 



" One other excursion I remember, when we went into 

 the City, first visiting most of Dr Johnson's resorts. His 

 staircase in the Temple then stood, and we went into ' The 

 Mitre' and got a glass of ale, sitting in the identical angtt- 



