THE GROVE, HIGHGATE 
times two thousand,” and that beyond three hundred and fifty 
pounds a year, he held money to be an evil. Finally, at forty-two, 
a broken and aged man, a slave to a vice which he felt that he 
himself was too infirm of purpose to overcome, he voluntarily put 
himself under the care of Dr. James Gillman, of Highgate, who 
ultimately effected a cure. All this is well known to the world 
at large. 
Dr. Gillman, in two volumes, of which the first alone has been 
published, has left an interesting account of the great poet’s advent 
at the Grove, Highgate, and how he came to fix upon his house 
as his home. 
A physician wrote to him, suggesting that he should under- 
take the professional charge of a distinguished literary man who 
was the victim of an unfortunate habit, but was so eager to cure 
it that he was willing to submit to any regimen, however severe. 
“As he is desirous of retirement and a garden,” he wrote, “I 
could think of no one so readily as yourself.” 
Thus the garden, the same beautiful garden shown in the drawing, 
was the determining factor which took the author of “ Christabel ” 
to the place where he lived for twenty years. 
Dr. Adams, who made the proposal, was to drive Coleridge 
to the Grove the following evening—but in the end he came alone. 
“An old gentleman of more than ordinary acquirements,” says 
Dr. Gillman, was sitting by the fireside when Coleridge was 
announced, 
Anyone who knows the pleasant, old-fashioned drawing-room 
at the Grove—even as it is to-day, will readily reconstruct 
the scene. It is a long, quaint room with several windows, 
opening on to a verandah overlooking the garden, where 
crocuses and a “‘ cloud of golden daffodils ’—the flowers beloved 
of Wordsworth—would in daylight have been in evidence; but 
night was closing down—the maid had shut the shutters, and 
drawn the curtains. As it was the 9th of April, there was a 
fire in the grate; and wax tapers glimmered on the high mantel- 
shelf, and on the centre-table, shedding a soft light over the 
apartment. 
Dr. Gillman, a dignified, benevolent-looking man in his prime, 
rose up when the guest was announced; his wife—a pretty 
woman, fair-haired and blue-eyed, as her grandson has described 
241 16 
