His great and dear spirit
haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or
books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the
proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian (or in the
first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was deputy Grecian; and the same
subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a life-long
acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his conversation.
In him was disproved that old maxim, that we should allow every one his
share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor cease till far
midnight; yet who ever would interrupt him,--who would obstruct that
continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion? He had the tact
of making the unintelligible seem plain. Many who read the abstruser parts
of his "Friend" would complain that his works did not answer to his spoken
wisdom. They were identical. But he had a tone in oral delivery, which
seemed to convey sense to those who were otherwise imperfect recipients.
He was my fifty years old friend without a dissension. Never saw I his
likeness, nor probably the world can see again. I seem to love the house
he died at more passionately than when he lived.
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