GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



windows in the rear of No. 3, command a glorious prospect, for 

 they look right across the " Nightingale Valley," over Lord Mans- 

 field's Park, to the sunsets, while in the early days of the nine- 

 teenth century, there must have been a magnificent view from the 

 front of the house also. 



Coleridge came to the Grove in 1813. An acquaintance that 

 we have seen so auspiciously begun, ripened daily throughout 

 the years of his residence at Highgate ; and the friendship thus 

 felicitously formed, only ended with his death in 1834. 



" Here on the brow of Highgate Hill," wrote Carlyle, " he sat 

 looking down on London, and its smoke and tumult, like a sage 

 escaped from the 'inanity of life's battles, and attracting the 

 thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there a heavy- 

 laden, high aspiring, surely much suffering man." 



Among the poet's ardent admirers and disciples, Carlyle himself, 

 then newly come to London, cannot be classed but the picturesque 

 sidelights that he throws upon this period of Coleridge's life are 

 invaluable ; and it is interesting to contrast his description of his 

 personal appearance in his last days, when prematurely aged, 

 with that by Dorothy Wordsworth of the poet in his youth, before 

 quoted : ' l A good man," he says, " he was now getting old and 

 gave you the idea of a life full of suffering ; a life heavy laden, 

 half vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold 

 physical and other bewilderment. Brow and head were round 

 and of massive weight, but the face was flabby, irresolute. The 

 deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration, 

 compressed pain looked mildly from them, as in a kind of mild 

 astonishment ; the whole figure and air good and amiable, other- 

 wise might be called flabby, irresolute ; expressive of weakness 

 under possibility of strength. He hung loosely on his limbs, 

 with knees bent and stooping attitude ; in walking, he rather 

 shuffled than decisively stepped ; and a lady .once remarked he 

 could never fix which side of the garden walk would suit him 

 best, but continually shifted corkscrew fashion, and kept trying 

 both." 



Truly doctors differ, and it is amusing to find that Emerson 

 saw in Coleridge " a short, thick old man, with bright blue eyes 

 and fine, clear complexion who took snuff freely, which presently 

 soiled his clothes and neat black suit." Harriet Martineau, 



246 



