274 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



hands ; he promising to exert himself to the utmost whenever the 

 high and mighty with whom the decision rests should come back 

 to London. I think, upon the whole, that there is nothing to be 

 gained or denied except Lord Melville's personal voice ; and it will 

 certainly be very odd if, every thing else being got over, he in this 

 personal and direct manner shows himself not indifferent, but pos- 

 itively adverse. I entertain, therefore, considerable hope, and if I 

 fail shall not be disappointed certainly, but d — d angry. 



" I shall be in Edinburgh, I think, on Thursday evening, when I 

 hope to find you and yours as well in health, and better in other 

 respects, than when I left you. May this year be happier than the 

 last ! Yours always, J. G. Lockhart." 



A letter from Mr. De Quincey, after a long silence, again brings 

 him before us, as graceful and interesting as ever, though also, alas ! 

 as heavily beset with his inevitable load of troubles. His letter is 

 simply dated " London ;" for obvious reasons, that great world was 

 a safer seclusion than even the Vale of Grasmere : — 



"London, Thursday, February 24, 1825. 

 " My dear Wilson : — I write to you on the following occasion : — 

 Some time ago, perhaps nearly two years ago, Mr. Hill, a lawyer, 

 published a book on Education,* detailing a plan on which his 

 brothers had established a school at Hazelwood, in Warwickshire. 

 This book I reviewed in the London Magazine, and in consequence 

 received a letter of thanks from the author, who, on my coming to 

 London about midsummer last year, called on me. I have since 

 become intimate with him, and excepting that he is a sad Jacobin 

 (as I am obliged to tell him once or twice a month), I have no one 

 fault to find with him, for he is a very clever, amiable, good creature 

 as ever existed ; and in particular directions his abilities strike me 

 as really very great indeed. Well, his book has just been reviewed 

 in the last Edinburgh Review (of which some copies have been in 

 town about a week). This service has been done him, I suppose, 

 through some of his political friends (for he is connected with 

 Brougham, Lord Lansdowne, old Bentham, etc.), but I understand 

 by Mr. Jeffrey. Now Hill, in common with multitudes in this 



* The work referred to here is, " Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in 

 large numbers, drawn from Experience. 1 ' Svo. London. 1828. 



